


On the Devil's Path

by anomalation



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: A major pun for a plot point, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Car Chases, Cults, Drug Withdrawal, FBI Agent Furiosa, Gen, Girls with Guns, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Violence, So basically all the good stuff, War Veteran Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6146363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalation/pseuds/anomalation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Furiosa went off the book to save some kids from a cult. Problem is, she didn't think too much further past that. Family road trip AU with lots of guns and bonding. All the requisite warnings for the Mad Max universe. </p><p>Title from the Sons of Anarchy theme because I thought it was funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The van is briefly, blessedly quiet. 

Just as Furiosa dares to think it, it stops being true. “Stop taking up so much of the room, Splendid,” Capable complains. 

“Move over and stop trying to lie down,” Splendid snaps back. “Your behind isn’t that big.” 

“Y’know who killed the world? You and your nagging.” Furiosa looks in the rearview mirror to see Capable glaring out the window.  

Toast, the Dag, and Cheedo are sitting together peacefully enough until the boy handcuffed on the floor up by Furiosa starts back in on his fevered chanting or praying or whatever it is. When he calls them breeders, the three of them lean over the back of Splendid and Capable’s seat and yell back. 

“We’re not things,” the Dag says flatly, with an air of warning more than informing. 

“If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll shut it for you,” Toast threatens. Furiosa looks back again then, to make sure she doesn’t have any weapon to follow through with it. Out of all the girls, Toast is the one she thinks would actually hurt the boy. 

“He has to believe it,” Splendid says, one hand over her belly, cradling the baby inside. “If he doesn’t believe it, he doesn’t have anything left.” 

“I do, I do. I’ll tell Father Joe where you are,” he says, deliriously sincere. “He’ll be so pleased with me, he himself will open the doors to Valhalla for me. I live-”

“You die, you live again,” a few of the girls finish in unison with him. “We know,” Capable adds, still looking out the window. 

“Father Joe is immortal,” the boy tells them. “He has a plan for each of us and those who obey will be rewarded.” 

“Can we gag him?” Cheedo asks, sounding tearful. She’s the youngest of the man’s wives, the one most upset about leaving.

“Can we throw him out?” Splendid says under her breath. 

“No,” Furiosa says. “Joe doesn’t know where we are. We can’t leave him a trail. Especially a trail that can speak.” 

The girls don’t argue. Furiosa can feel the tension among all of them. They escaped less than an hour ago. The hard part has barely begun, and they know that. They’re smart girls. Still, Furiosa doesn’t know what she’s doing with them. She’s stolen five girls and has taken a teenage boy hostage. Nothing to do but keep going. 

She pulls into a gas station about a half hour later. Before them is orangey-red dirt as far as they can see. “We’re going to drive through the desert for a few days,” she says, turning around once the car is off. “Buy as much water as they’ve got, and food. Anything filling and small. Protein bars and jerky, like that.” She opens the glovebox and pulls out one of the envelopes of twenties stashed there. “Toast, and Capable. Here.” 

She hoists the boy up off the floor enough to pull off the jacket he’s wearing. She hands that to Capable. Toast has a dress on that could pass as normal, if a little short, but Capable’s got what amounts to a bikini on, and that will stand out in the attendant’s memory. “Don’t attract attention. If they ask, say we’re on a road trip. Put forty dollars on this pump. Alright?” 

Toast nods and Capable does as well, putting her hands deep in the pockets of her new jacket. Furiosa can’t tell if she hates wearing it or loves it. It doesn’t matter. 

“Go,” she says. “Ten minutes. The rest of you, stay in the car. Make sure he doesn’t get out.” 

Splendid nods grimly. “No Warboy is bringing me back,” she says. 

Furiosa doesn’t care about their egos particularly, as long as the boy stays in the car. With his pale, sickly appearance and completely bald head, he’s the definition of memorable. 

The two girls duck out of the door and shut it behind them. Furiosa gets out then too, and watches them. They haven’t been out of Joe’s compound for years at least, they don’t know how the world works. But it goes off without a hitch. She fills the tank while they shop, looking down the road the way they came. No one’s coming after them. 

It takes them several trips to bring all the goods out. Four packs of water bottles, twenty-four in each. Two more trips for all the thin plastic bags full of food that they stow in the back. Then they’re all back in. 

“Your change,” Capable says, handing the envelope back to her. Furiosa looks in - they spent almost a hundred dollars. 

“We need to make this last,” Furiosa tells them. “The food and the money. We’ll be rationing the food and water.” 

“Nothing we aren’t used to,” Splendid says. The other girls seem to agree. 

Before she starts going again, Furiosa takes a look at the boy still on the floor between her seat and the passenger seat. He’s quiet now, but alert, definitely listening to everything happening. As she looks at him, though, he seems to realize that he’s cooperating and gets restless again. 

“Father Joe is coming for us,” he says, looking dead in her eyes. His are bright blue, feverish and manic. “You’ve stolen his wives. He’ll shred you, he’ll feed you to his dogs and-”

“Gag him,” Furiosa says. She won’t deal with this for hours at a time. 

Capable gets out of her seat to do it, using a piece torn off the Dag’s wrap. Furiosa starts the van and pulls back onto the road while Capable works on the gag. She’s having problems. The boy keeps struggling, refusing to open his mouth for her and also flinching from her touch. As Furiosa watches, Capable loses patience and digs her fingers in the hinge of his jaw to get his mouth open and presses the cloth in so he has no choice but to bite down. Then she ties it at the back of his head, handling his bare head with unexpected care. 

“What are we going to do with him?” she asks, sitting back down. 

Furiosa doesn’t know. She thinks before she answers. “Keep him with us for the time being,” she finally says. “At least for a few days. We don’t have time to do anything else.” They do have another option. She has three firearms within reach of her right hand. Not yet, though. Maybe he can give them information. 

They have a meal when the sun sinks low, casting long shadows over the dusty road. Toast hands out a granola bar and three pieces of beef jerky each, along with a bottle of water. “Should I give you some for the warboy?” she asks, sitting in the passenger seat to give Furiosa her share. 

Furiosa hasn’t even thought about him for several hours. She looks down now to see he’s curled up on his side, even paler than before, sweating and shaking. She leans down to feel his forehead with the back of her hand. He’s burning up. “Was he taking anything?” she asks.

“Joe gave them drugs,” Capable says quietly from her seat. “To keep them obedient. He told them it was part of their training.”

So it’s withdrawal. “What drugs?” 

‘I don’t know. Pills mostly, different ones.” 

It’s not that surprising. The Father had his faithful boys taking uppers. It explains how prone they seem to heart problems and dying young, as well. Furiosa feels for his pulse next in his neck. It’s racing. 

“No food for him,” she says. “He’ll throw it up. Leave me an extra water bottle, though.” 

Toast nods and puts the extra bottle in another cupholder before stepping over the boy back to the back seats. 

Furiosa can’t stop paying attention to him now that she started. He’s silent but absolutely miserable. He’s probably cold, since Capable’s wearing his jacket and the only other thing he has on are cargo pants. If they had blankets, she’d give him one. 

“Splendid,” she says. “You’ve driven before?” The pregnant girl nods. “Come, drive.” 

With some careful negotiating, Furiosa gets into the passenger seat and Splendid takes the wheel. With her hands free now, Furiosa eats her portion of food quickly and then leans down to take care of the boy. First, she removes his gag. His teeth are clenched around it now, she has to coax his mouth open. Capable did a good job; there are red marks on his cheeks from the cloth. 

“What’s your name?’ she asks him. 

He doesn’t answer. She isn’t sure he can, he’s shivering so hard. 

“Do any of you know him?” she asks the girls. 

They all shake their heads. “Joe had hundreds, seemed like,” Splendid says. 

Furiosa watches him, but there’s no reaction even at Joe’s name. “Alright,” she says, and hauls him up to sit upright, leaning him against the dashboard. 

The boy opens his eyes then, and her stomach drops a little when she sees how glazed-over they are. “Come on,” she says. “Got water for you.” She holds up the bottle for him to see, and he opens his mouth. She gives him a mouthful at a time, spilling only a little down his chest. He drinks well enough, but he’s so quiet and still so hot when she feels his forehead that she knows he’s not in good shape. They’ll need to stop somewhere tonight to get past the worst of this without him puking in the van. She wasn’t counting on that. 

“Are you good to drive for a while?” she asks Splendid. 

“Sure. Just stay on this road?” 

“Yeah. And keep an eye out for a motel.” 

Splendid looks over at her, then down at the boy. “Alright,” she says then. “What’s happening to him?” 

“Withdrawal. Whatever drugs he’s been on have a hard crash.” She wets the cloth that was his gag and puts it over his forehead. And he just leans back hard and shuts his eyes. “Feel hot?” she asks him. 

He nods. “And cold. Freezing. Father Joe isn’t happy with me.” 

She doesn’t know why he’s making that connection, but she doesn’t need to. “You’re dehydrated,” she says. “Drink some more.” He does. “Tell me your name.” 

“Nux.”

Even for a cult leader, Father Joe picked some odd names for his followers. She gives him more water in small gulps. “Lean forward,” she tells him, and when he considers resisting, she pushes him forward. His hands are a little red, but he flinches when she pinches his palm. No damage. “You can stay sitting if you keep your mouth shut.” 

Nux thinks about not doing it. He glances at Splendid in the driver’s seat, at the girls in the seats facing him, and then he looks at Furiosa. His eyes are still glazed-over and exhausted. He stays quiet and pulls his knees up to his chest to rest his head on. The worst of his withdrawal symptoms haven’t even started, but Furiosa doesn’t tell him that

The sun sinks past the horizon, turning the warm desert cold and blue. The boy on the floor starts shaking, hard. She ties the gag back in his mouth so he can’t bite off his own tongue, and she helps him lean forward to keep his head between his knees so he won’t faint. It won’t be long before he starts throwing up whatever he’s got in him. “Motel,” she says to Splendid. 

“I know, I’m looking, there’s nothing out here.” 

Furiosa looks back at the other girls. The Dag has the other two leaning against her sleeping, while she looks out the window in rapt interest. Capable is curled up small in the big seat, and when Furiosa looks at her they make eye contact. “Will he be alright?” she asks. 

“We’ll see.” 

Nux’s hands flex against the handcuffs suddenly in a spasm, and he makes a loud alarmed noise through the gag. He starts hyperventilating almost immediately after. 

“What’s happening to him?” Splendid asks. 

“He’s having a panic attack,” Furiosa says shortly. She isn’t mad, she’s worried. She kneels on the floor then, in front of him, and holds his head still to look him in the eyes. “Listen to me,” she says. “This is a panic attack. Breathe. I can’t uncuff you.” 

She can’t tell if he’s scared or manic again for a few seconds, but then she knows he’s scared because he shuts his eyes and just shivers. 

It’s Splendid who reaches out to soothe him. She rubs over his head gently with her hand, pressing small circles in the side with her thumb. “Shh,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. Furiosa knows what she’s doing.” And Nux does quiet and still, and his breath evens out slowly but surely. 

Furiosa feels the car turn a bit, and she looks up at Splendid. “Motel,” Splendid says. 

They pay two hundred dollars cash for adjoining rooms. “Capable, Splendid, unlock the rooms,” Furiosa says. “Go straight in. Don’t be seen.” With varying degrees of alertness, the girls all nod. She just has to worry about the boy. 

Nux has gone alarming silent. Furiosa pulls a pistol out of one of her hiding spots before she hauls him up, and she double checks that it’s loaded in front of him. “If you try to yell or run, I will shoot you in the spine,” she says to him. “You won’t die, you won’t go to Valhalla, but you’ll be in a lot of pain. Am I clear?” He nods. 

She doesn’t dare believe him. She helps him out to stand up, and immediately she presses the muzzle against his bare back. It’s truly night, really dark, and that makes her want to get a locked door between her and the world as soon as possible. 

At first she thinks he’s jittery, trying to run, but then she sees he’s just shaking more, so weak on his legs he can barely walk. The worst is coming. She needs to get him to a toilet. So she hurries him with a hand on his shoulder into the room on the left and shuts the door behind her. Splendid’s on the bed but she pays no mind to her. She can feel ripples up his spine, and she knows what it means. She barely gets him to the toilet, pulling the gag down so it hangs around his neck just in time. 

He throws up hard, every muscle in him squeezing out whatever he ate before. It sounds painful, and Furiosa looks away, tucking the gun in the back of her waistband. She hands him a glass of water when he’s done, and tells him, “Rinse out your mouth. And then flush.” 

“What?” 

Right, these children are so sheltered. She flushes the toilet for him, and watches him jump nervously. He probably isn’t through throwing up. He’ll need to get used to it.

“You’re going through amphetamine withdrawal,” she tells him even though it won’t mean much to him. “Joe’s been giving you drugs. Now that you don’t have them, you’re going to throw up and be feverish all night. You might have more panic attacks or suicidal impulses. You’ll feel like you’d do anything to get more drugs. You won’t get any.” 

“Father Joe is unhappy,” Nux says despondently, head against the toilet seat. “He’s wished ill on me. I let his wives be stolen from him and I’m being punished.” 

Briskly, she kneels down and unlocks his handcuffs. His wrists are raw where he pulled at them. “Stay here,” she says. “Make sure the nausea passed.” 

He doesn’t fight her on that. There’s no window in the bathroom and nothing sharp, so she stands in the doorway and checks on Splendid. “If you want a good night of sleep, go next door,” she tells her. 

“Alright. Do you need any help?” Splendid asks, standing up laboriously.

“I’ll be alright.”

Capable and the Dag replace Splendid anyways, probably on her request. “We’ll help,” Capable says. “Take turns so we can all get sleep.” 

No point in arguing. “Okay.” 

The Dag holds up one plastic bag. “I brought food in case he can eat.” 

“Good.” Furiosa looks back at Nux. He’s still leaning against the toilet, taking deep breaths. “Probably not for a while.” 

Once he’s thrown up everything he can, she ties him to one of the beds. He could try to run, or try to hurt himself or the girls. “If you yell, I’ll have to gag you again,” she says, looking him in the eyes. “If you want water, tell us. Okay?” 

“The gates of Valhalla will never open to me, I’m not in his favor. He’s cursing me.” 

It’s useless to try to speak with him like this. It might always be useless to speak to him. The gun is heavy in the back of her pants. She sits on the other bed next to the girls. “Can you keep an eye on him?” she asks. 

“I will,” Capable says. “Anything we should do?” 

“If he gets feverish, use a damp washcloth to cool him down. If he gets sick again, wake me. The rest will all be in his head.” Not like that makes it any less dangerous. But it’s not their responsibility. 

Capable nods, and the Dag as well. So Furiosa closes her eyes and naps twenty minutes at a time, waking up periodically to make sure everyone’s alright. 

Around two in the morning, she wakes to hear Capable talking. “Don’t say that, Warboy. Father Joe isn’t here, he doesn’t know where we are. He can’t curse you.”

“I’ll never die with honor,” Nux says. He’s distraught but he sounds so much more calm than ever before. “He said he was saving me for something better.” 

“Maybe this is the something better. Maybe this was your destiny.” 

“Bringing back his wives?” 

“No, stupid. Making a life of your own, outside of the Citadel. You could do anything. What do you like to do?” 

“I worked in his garages, one of his best mechanics.” 

Furiosa opens her eyes, and glances over. She sees Capable sitting close to his side, cross-legged, She’s not touching him, but it looks like she wants to. “People pay a lot of money for good mechanics,” she tells him. 

“I don’t want money,” Nux says. “I want to die with honor.”

“Well you don’t have to die now,” she murmurs, and she touches him, one gentle finger over the inside of his arm. “You can be so much more.” 

He doesn’t say anything in response, so Furiosa closes her eyes and goes back to sleep. 

The next time she wakes up, she’s being roused by the Dag. “Can we untie the warboy so he can eat?” she asks. 

“Is he still feverish?” 

“No. He’s not shaking, either. Look at him.” Furiosa does. He’s lying there calmly, not pulling against his restraints or spitting insults. She wonders how much time Capable spent talking to him to get him this way. The girl is curled up near him, not sleeping but resting, apparently trusting him. Furiosa feels his forehead; it’s cool and dry. 

“Okay,” she nods. “Are you going to behave?”

Nux nods several times, quickly, so Furiosa unties him. He sits up quickly, and the women all start but it’s just his restless enthusiasm. But he sees they’re scared and gets worried, closing and opening his hands before daring to put a hand on Capable’s back for a second. Even then, he pulls away so quickly, like she’s burning him. 

The Dag brings him food, jerky and a granola bar and what’s left of his water bottle, and Nux devours it. Capable speaks up, propping herself up on one arm. “He was one of Father Joe’s revheads, he worked on his cars. So that’s good, he can help with the van.” 

Furiosa doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t trust him enough. She still plans on walking him to the car with a gun to his back. “Have you slept?” she asks. 

Capable shakes her head. The Dag nods. Nux shakes his head too.

 “You should,” Furiosa tells them. “I’ll stay up to keep watch.” 

Capable drops her head back down and shuts her eyes. Nux seems bemused by that, looking between her and and Furiosa and the Dag, who’s watching him like a hawk. Furiosa sees the question in his eyes but doesn’t answer it, just to see what he’ll do. The Warboy eventually lies back down where he was, on his back and holds very still. 

“We need to blend in better,” the Dag says. “Where can we buy clothes that blend in?” 

“At a mall or something.” 

“A mall,” the girl repeats. “Are there any nearby?” 

“No. But we won’t be seeing any people for a while.”

The Dag nods. “Warboy needs a shirt as well,” she observes. “Capable doesn’t seem very inclined to give back his jacket. He’s probably cold.” 

This boy was part of the cult that made her a sex slave. He only recently stopped trying to actively take them back. These girls’ compassion is nonsensical. Furiosa doesn’t try to argue with it. She checks on the next room over. 

Splendid has a bed to herself, sleeping on her back with her hands crossed over her stomach. Cheedo and Toast are sleeping the other bed. All is well. Furiosa spends a few minutes checking that the door and window are sturdy and locked, and then she goes back to the other room. 

The Warboy has turned onto his side facing Capable, curled around her without touching her. He won’t hurt her, she’s somehow sure of it. So she sits up in the other bed, leans back against the headboard, and closes her eyes. The Dag is sleeping on the other side of the bed, so she sleeps lightly, but she sleeps. She isn’t disturbed.

Shortly after dawn, she wakes up halfway to see that Capable and Nux are missing from their bed. That shocks her fully awake, but her keys are still in her pocket, gun in her waistband, and the door is still double locked so she doesn’t panic. She checks the bathroom. Nux is leaning against the toilet, and Capable has her hand on his back. “He’s throwing up again,” she says when she sees Furiosa. 

“Fever?” 

Capable nods. “And he’s shivering. More of the drugs effects?” 

“Yes. We can’t stay longer.” She doesn’t want him to throw up in the van, though, and they can’t afford to spend time coddling him through his symptoms anymore. She takes the gun out of her waistband. 

Capable hears it, looks at the gun and then at Nux. “No,” she says suddenly. “No, we can’t kill him. Furiosa, no, we don’t have to.” 

Nux looks around wearily, sees the gun and he just sighs, all the air leaving his body. His shoulders slump, his eyes shut. And for some reason, that changes her mind when she was sure nothing would. “I wasn’t going to,” she says. “Come on. Out to the van. Wake the other girls, and strip the beds, take the blankets.” 

Capable looks at her with deep suspicion, but she obeys. Nux struggles to his feet on his own, and staggers a bit. She doesn’t even point the gun at him. “How old are you?” she asks. 

“I don’t know.” 

She takes hold of him at the shoulder and nudges him out in front of her. He doesn’t protest at all, doesn’t fight. He walks where she says without feeling the gun, and he doesn’t even resist her snapping the handcuffs back on. She puts his hands in front today, probably foolishly. “Do you think you’ll throw up again?” she asks. 

“No,” he shakes his head, unbalancing himself a little. She finds herself steadying him. 

“Okay. If you feel like you will, tell me. I don’t want it in my van.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

The term of deference surprises her. She’s gentler with him, getting him out to the car. She doesn’t press the muzzle against his spine. And he obeys anyways. “Sit on the floor between the seats,” she says, and he does without hesitation. 

She’s just tucked her gun away when a huge RV stutters to life at the other end of the parking lot. There’s something odd-sounding about the ignition, so she pays attention, watching how it jerks forward and then stops. 

“Manual transmission,” Nux mumbles. 

“What?” 

“Oh,” he says, looking a bit surprised to be listened to. “That big bus thing, has a manual transmission. They keep letting off the clutch too quick.” 

Anyone with their own RV should know how to drive it. Furiosa has an inkling of an idea, and as she watches it continue to stop and start, she has even more of one. 

She looks at the warboy. “Stay in the van.” He nods. 

Quickly, she walks over to the RV and raps on the door. The engine dies again, and after a few loud steps, the door opens. There’s a shotgun in her face. She holds very still, and looks at the man holding the gun impassively. He’s big, a lot older than the teenager on a joyride she was expecting. “If you’re stealing this, you won’t get very far,” she says. 

“And what did you intend to do about that?” he says. He has an odd accent. 

Her gun isn’t within reach. Neither is her wallet. In the seconds while she’s thinking, she hears a door open, and she’s suddenly aware that her girls are on their way out here. 

She can’t yell. And she doesn’t think they can see the shotgun from their angle. “I was going to suggest driving lessons,” she says. He looks over her shoulder, at the girls probably, so she lunges at him, ducking under the gun and tackling him to the RV floor. He hangs onto the gun, but she gets a hold of hers and presses the muzzle against his chest. “Don’t move,” she says. 

He’s thinking about moving, trying to calculate the time he has. “What do you want?” he says. 

“Is this yours?” she asks, nodding at their surroundings. 

Rather than answering, he shoves her gun away and tries to get his shotgun between them. It’s too long, and when he realizes that he flips them, slamming her hand down until she lets go of the gun in pain. She scrabbles for it, then instead knees him in the gut and shoves his head into the kitchenette counter. His head starts bleeding into his eyes, but he gets her gun and he points it at her head. 

“Who are you?” he asks. “Are you a cop?” 

“No. I’m someone who knows how to drive stick.” 

“Then drive,” he says predictably. 

She takes several deep breaths. “Can’t do that.” 

“Furiosa!” The shout comes from outside the open door, and then Splendid is in view. Furiosa’s heart drops. 

“Get back!” she yells right as the man points his gun at Splendid. 

“Get in,” he says, then motions with the gun when she doesn’t move. 

Splendid looks at him for several long moments. “If you shoot me, they’ll call the police,” she finally says. “I have a feeling you probably don’t want that. And if you keep pointing that gun at me, Furiosa will eventually be able to take you down.” She lets that sink in for a second then says, “You can have our van. Just let us unload it.” 

He thinks it over for several long seconds. “No,” he finally says. “Just get in.” 

“Get out first,” Furiosa says. “The girls won’t move if you’re still in here. Get out. And put the gun away unless you want to get arrested.” 

She’s right and he knows it, so after a moment, he tucks the gun in his jacket and steps out. Furiosa waits a bit before following, looking out the door. “Get Nux,” she says to Splendid. 

“Warboy!” Splendid calls, and Nux’s head pops out of the door. The man starts at the sight of him, and Furiosa finds herself being worried about the boy getting shot. “Come here,” Splendid calls. “Now, quickly.” Nux obeys her, scooting out the door and then dashing over to them. 

Furiosa sort of cuffs his head gently as soon as she can, pulling him inside. “Sit,” she says. Splendid follows him in and takes a seat at the small table, rubbing the back of her neck. With them safe, Furiosa calls to the other girls. “Get in.” Capable herds the others, putting herself between the man and them. Toast gives him a firm glare for good measure. They have armfuls of blankets and towels, at least. 

“He’s taking our food,” Cheedo says, voice wavering. 

“It’s alright,” Furiosa says. “Find a seat. There’s a bed in the back, go there.” She picks the shotgun up off the floor and checks - it’s fully loaded. There are more shells on the table in a box. “Have any of you girls ever shot a gun?” she asks. 

“I have,” Nux says. 

“I know how to,” Toast says. 

“Front seat,” Furiosa says. “Keep the gun out of sight for now.” She takes the driver’s seat, and starts the engine. 

Toast sits where directed, gun shells in her lap. “What are we doing?” she asks. 

“Waiting.” She watches the man start the van and pull out. He’s pulls out and drives down the road into the desert. She follows him. They make it maybe a mile into the desert before the van in front of them putters out. “Toast,” she says. “Gun.” The girl points it out the window as they pull up even to the van. 

The man looks at them with frustration. He doesn’t even put the gun up. 

“We’ll take our things now,” Furiosa says, putting the bus into park. She thinks for a second about who to send for the things and it’s pretty clear what she has to do. “Warboy,” she barks, and he comes over quickly. “Get the bags from the trunk and put them in here.” He nods. “If you run, I’ll shoot you in the head,” she adds, but he’s not strong enough to run. He’s shivering again. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and ducks out the door. It’s a bit of a struggle with his cuffed hands, but he makes several quick trips and gets everything in on the floor, all the water and food. He’s panting by the end of it, kneeling next to the pile, and she has an urge to praise him. She gives him a nod, and then gets out herself. 

With Toast covering her, Furiosa goes around to the passenger side and pulls out the whole bag in the glove box, slinging it on before the man can get ahold of it. Then, with him watching, she pulls her guns out from their hiding spots, keeping the first one trained on him. 

“What’s wrong with the van?” the man says. He has half a smile on his face. 

“It’s not yours,” she retorts. 

“Fix it.” He’s not aggressive, but he’s not quite friendly. And now that they have their supplies, she’s inclined to help him, another renegade on the road. 

“Keep the gun away,” she finally says, then calls louder “Toast, stand down.” After a moment, the girl pulls the barrel back inside, and the man puts his gun in his pocket. “I’ve armed all my girls,” she tells him. “If you try to fuck me over, they’ll shoot you without hesitation.” She stands up, taking her armful of guns and cash. 

“Where are you going?” 

“To get a good mechanic. We don’t have all day.” Furiosa leans inside to dump her stuff on the floor, and then she waves Nux over. He sits on the single step near the door, and she unlocks his handcuffs. “How do you feel?” she asks him. 

He hesitates before answering. She almost doesn’t need the answer, though, because she can feel the tremors in his hands and how clammy and hot he still is. He needs rest, and water. “I’m fine,” he says. “What is it?” 

“There are kill switches in the van. Can you help disable them?” 

Nux nods quickly. “Do you have tools?” 

“Yes. Are you sure?” 

“Yes, yes. I’m good at it, I can help.” 

“Okay. Come on.” She gets her toolkit out of the pile on the floor and tugs him up. The boy jumps up and follows her, humming with anxious energy and stumbling because his legs are too weak. “Pop the hood,” she tells the man, and he does. At the sight of the engine, the boy settles down. “Look,” Furiosa points. “They’re connected to the fuel lines. Do you think you can handle it, disconnecting them?”

“Yes, yes,” he nods again, pulling out a wrench and digging it in between two parts. She watches him. He’s deft and quick, and he’s got a good start in a few minutes at changing it back. Furiosa doesn’t even need to help him. 

“How long will this take?” the man asks, leaning out of the car. 

“As long as it needs to.” She doesn’t need Nux here, really. She could fix it. But she doesn’t want to be bent over the engine. She wants to keep an eye on this strange man who’s a thief and a fighter but not a psychopath. 

The longer she stays there, the heat starts pulsing down on them. She thinks the boy will be sunburned at the end of this, and she might be as well. 

The man is looking at her for too long, probably at her shorn hair and clothes. She knows her clothes are almost as unusual as the girls’ in that they’re plain and dirty and masculine. If he tries anything, she’ll shoot him, but he can look as long as he wants. 

She hears something hiss, and when she looks back at Nux she sees him inspecting a fresh pink burn, long and painful-looking. “You alright?” she asks. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He sticks his hand back in the engine and retrieves the wrench at the cost of another burn. She pushes him away from the van then, and he stumbles. He looks at her with hurt in his face. 

“Stop it,” she says. “Those could get infected.” 

“Oh. It’s alright. I’ll be okay. I’ve almost got the first one.” He wants to reach back in, and she’s giving him a very stern glare when Toast calls out to them. 

“The Dag sees lights behind us.” 

Furiosa looks, Nux looks, and the man does too. Red and blue lights are on the horizon, several miles away. The man swears. 

“What are those?” Nux asks. 

She doesn’t have time to explain. She barely has time to decide what to do. “Nux, in the car,” she orders. He obeys instantly. “They’re for you?” she asks the man. He nods once. “What did you do?” 

“Killed a man. The man who killed my family,” he adds, and then he points the gun at her again. “I need to get out of here.” 

“I’m getting my wallet,” she says, before reaching for it slowly. He lets her, and he lets her flip it open. She watches him process it. “Do you really want to leave me here?” she says. “I know the license plate.” His jaw works a bit. She’s right, and he’s too proud to ask for favors. “If you hurt my girls, I’ll kill you,” she says. 

“You want to take me?” he frowns. “Why?” 

Because he’s seen their faces, and he could identify them to anyone looking. And because Joe had connections within the police. “Come or don’t,” she says. “We’re leaving in thirty seconds. And you’ll want to wipe down the car.” And she weighs the choices before turning her back to him. 

He doesn’t shoot her. She gets back in the RV. The money and guns are nowhere to be seen, and she looks at Splendid on a hunch. Splendid nods, and then gives the man a hard stare as he steps inside. To his credit, he doesn’t try to match it. But when he tries to sit at the table with her, Furiosa stops him. “Front seat,” she says. 

Nux is sitting between the two front seats, back against the dashboard, and that’s the moment when she stops distrusting him and when he starts being another one of the kids she’s stealing from a cult. She pauses for a second, kneels in front of him and puts her hand over his head. He’s done his best to help her. “Good,” she says. “Stay here.” 

He nods, daring to smile a little, and she almost smiles back. When she sits down and starts the car, Nux shuts his eyes and leans in a bit, towards her leg. He can’t feel good, but he doesn’t complain. 

The man sits down in the passenger seat when Toast moves. Furiosa glances over at him only to see out the window that the van is on fire. That’ll work. She presses the gas, releases the clutch and they get going. It runs well, and after maybe fifteen minutes the lights are almost gone. They’ve stopped at the van, most likely. That gives her more time to get further away. 

“Are there maps?” she asks the man. He checks the glove compartment and pulls out a couple. “You know where we are. Any towns coming up?” 

He wrestles the maps open and then concentrates on reading it for a second. “No,” he says. “Just desert for… hundreds of miles.” 

“If we avoid Vegas, more than that, right?” 

“Yes. Where are you headed?” 

“Green place,” Splendid murmurs just loud enough to be heard. “A day’s journey east, three days north.” 

Furiosa doesn’t say anything to that, just “Get the warboy some water.” 

It’s Toast who obeys, bringing him a bottle from wherever the girls stashed them. “Do we get breakfast?” she asks. 

She forgot about it. “Yes.” 

“Some for the Warboy?” 

“Of course.” Furiosa keeps her eyes on the road and ignores how Nux looks at her hopefully. The stranger is curious, but that is irrelevant. “We can drop you off in the next town we find,” she says. “Where the heat’s died down.” 

“Okay.” 

When handing out food, Toast gives the man water but nothing else. Furiosa approves with a nod, and then looks down to check on Nux. He’s drinking but not eating. Probably for the best. But then she sees the burns again. Those will need care soon. 

“Girls, you all alright?” she calls back. 

“Good,” Splendid affirms. 

“Fine,” Toast says, sounding grim. 

“I’m alright,” Capable says. 

“Yeah,” Cheedo calls next. 

The Dag takes a moment to answer. “There’s a car coming,” she finally says. 

The stranger turns to look out his window. “Yes. A pickup truck.”

“Dark green?” 

“Yes.” 

She doesn’t need to see the girls to know they’re scared. Grimly, she speeds up. She has a gun in her waistband, six more in the vehicle. The girls aren’t going back. 

“So who’s after you?” the man asks. 

“Not me. Them. Their husband.” 

“Father Joe,” Nux says, with barely a trace of his previous fervor. “He lit the sun. His wives are the most beautiful women in the world. He’ll shred you.” 

“His wives?” the stranger repeats, looking back into the RV. “How old are they?” 

“Cheedo’s fourteen,” she says. “Splendid is twenty. The rest are between the two of them.”

This man loved his family. It’s so clear in his reaction. “So he’s come to get them back,” he says. “And who’s this?” he motions at Nux. 

“Another devotee of Joe’s. How’s your aim?” 

“Fine.” 

“Take the shotgun up top and aim for their tires when they’re close enough.” She raises her voice. “Girls, take cover. Put something hard between you and them. They may start shooting.” She motions Nux over into the passenger seat when the stranger decides to obey. But no sooner has she done that than the boy slips himself through the open window. “Shit,” she says loudly, craning her neck to make sure he landed okay. Behind them, rapidly getting smaller, he stands up. 

“Where’d the Warboy go?” Toast asks. 

From the back, Capable yells, “He fell out. Stop, we have to get him.” 

“He didn’t fall, he jumped. We keep moving.” She should’ve predicted it. He wanted to get back to Joe. Of course he did. He’ll get hooked on whatever drugs again, he’ll be with Joe for the rest of his life, and it’ll probably be prematurely cut short. He might be satisfied with an honorable death, but she isn’t. She should’ve handcuffed him again. 

Furiosa keeps going as fast as she feels safe going, but the truck keeps gaining on them. Minutes drag by as long as years, and then the man on the roof fires the first shot. Cheedo yelps. The Dag reports. “Missed.” Another shot then, and another report. “Missed, but they swerved.” 

“How far away?” 

“A hundred feet, maybe.” 

That’s close enough for them to fire back. “Take cover,” Furiosa begins, but is interrupted by more gunfire - the familiar shotgun blast but then also softer, sharper fire. Something whizzes by her outside the truck. Something else hits, clanking off the metal. She speeds up. 

It’s three more shots before Dag announces, “He hit their front wheel.”

“Did they stop?” 

“No.” 

Furiosa speeds up even more. The man on the roof takes another shot, another report that he hit it, and finally the truck skids off the road and starts rapidly falling behind. They’re safe for now. 

The man drops back in through the door in the ceiling, sets the shotgun on the table by Splendid before he comes back up to Furiosa. “The boy jumped out?” 

“Yep.” 

“Is that over with then?” 

“No. That was their lead car. They’ll be back.” She’s already checking the rearview mirror. 

“We should get off this road.” 

“Can’t. There’s a checkpoint up further,” she says. “People are waiting for me. A safehouse.” She can’t decide if this man will be allowed to join them.

“I see.” 

“Take the wheel,” she says then. “No gear shifting, no clutch. Just keep us going eighty at least. We should reach the checkpoint by nightfall.” 

He nods, gets in the seat and handles it alright. She goes back to check on the girls. Splendid and Toast are at the table. Splendid’s eyes are shut and Toast’s chin is on her arms on the table. “Are you alright?” she asks them. 

“Fine,” Toast nods. 

“I thought the warboy might stay,” Splendid says. 

“Do you think Joe will take him back?” 

Toast gives her a very sharp look. “Maybe.” 

“Maybe he’ll blame him for us escaping,” Splendid says. “Joe’s not predictable.” 

Furiosa nods. She checks the girls in the back then. Capable is sitting curled up against the bed, arms on her knees. The Dag and Cheedo are sitting in bed, pressed against each other. “Are you alright?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Cheedo says. “No shots hit us.” 

“Why’d he go?” Capable asks. She’s still wearing the boy’s jacket. “After he helped us and was cooperating and everything.”

“I don’t know.” Furiosa says. “Once we reach the safehouse, I’m going to go back the road and see what Joe has. He doesn’t know my face, so I think I can probably get there and back fine. I’ll see what’s after us, and I’ll see if there’s any trace of the boy.” 

“Okay,” Capable nods. “Is the man coming to the safehouse with us?” 

“I don’t know. What do you think?” 

The Dag answers. “I think he deserves the chance,” she says. “He shot them for us.” 

He did. Maybe he does deserve that chance. Furiosa nods, and she walks back up to the front of the vehicle then. She sits in the passenger seat for a second, to think without distraction. They have at least eight hours until they’re at the safehouse. Plenty of food and water, but Joe’s cars are the biggest threat. They could manage to catch up. 

“I can drive for a while,” the man says. 

“Okay.” She glances at the speedometer. He’s not slowing down.

“The girls call you Furiosa,” he adds after a bit. There’s a question there. 

“Yes. What should they call you?” 

He glances at her, hesitates several long seconds. “Max,” he finally says, as short as possible, like if he lingers on the word it’d be dangerous. And he checks, to see if that means anything to her. It doesn’t.

“Ex-military?” she asks him. 

“Yes,” he says, still clipped, and surprised. “How did you know?”

“The way you handle the gun. You aren’t trigger-happy. You follow protocol. And your hair’s a grown out crew cut.” 

He runs his hand over his hair self-consciously. “Oh. Well, you would know.” 

“Keep that quiet,” she says. 

“Okay,” he says, after a long enough pause that she knows he did really think about it. “What do they think you are?” 

“A friend.” 

He makes a bit of a face at that, but he nods and he smiles. “A very good one.” 

She thinks she trusts him. She knows she likes him. There’s something solid about him, something upright and not exactly kind but never cruel. Desperation does a lot of things to a person. She knows that. 

“How far are you coming with us?” she asks him after a bit. “What’s your destination?” 

He shrugs. “Somewhere the law won’t bother me. Montana, maybe.” 

“That’s near where we’re going,” she says after a second. 

“Well, I’m not asking for a ride all the way,” He rubs his left leg absently. Possibly an old injury from battle, or a nervous tic. She likes it either way. 

“You’ve got one if you want it,” she says after a second, weighing her words carefully. “As long as you don’t touch the girls. Not a finger.” 

“No,” he says in surprise. “Of course not.” 

And that’s kind of why she’s letting him come with them. That and the gun in her belt, the six others hidden in the rig. “Then okay,” she says.

They reach the checkpoint after midnight. Furiosa’s back in the driver’s seat, Max beside her, asleep. She wakes him when they’re near, touching his arm, and he startles awake with a strangled sound. 

“It’s alright,” she says. “We’re almost there.”

“Okay.” He looks behind them, into the dark space. “Everyone alright?” 

“Yes. Asleep, mostly.” 

Max nods. “What time is it?” 

“Twelve thirty. Nearer to one. Once we’re in, I’m going back out.” 

“Okay. I can stay with them, if…” 

She shakes her head. “The women that run this place are good. No danger.” 

He nods again. She slows the RV then, all the way to a gentle stop. “I’m getting out.”

“Okay.” She sees him adjusting the gun in his jacket.

She’s nervous, because she’s never done this before. But that’s the billboard for an adult entertainment place, and there’s a seam in the pavement, just like there’s supposed to be. And there’s a payphone, looking decrepit. There’s no receiver, but she doesn’t need one. She hits a sequence of nine numbers, and the road opens up. A hundred-foot stretch of the highway moves with a loud mechanical noise and becomes a ramp down. 

“You could’ve said something,” Max says when she gets back behind the wheel. 

She almost smiles. He’s joking in his own way. “Could’ve,” she agrees. 

They drive under the highway for a while, on a slight decline until they’re far underground. The tunnel turns then, and so they do. The tunnel opens up to a giant cavern, and carved into the sides is architecture. Doors and windows, and three stories in some places. “This is the safehouse?” Splendid says. “Not much of a house.” 

“Safehouse is easier to say,” Furiosa shrugs, and Max lets out a noise that might be a laugh. 

She gets out first, to meet the person in charge. “I’m Furiosa,” she says. She doesn’t know what name they gave, and she doesn’t  want her cover to get ruined now. 

“Nice to meet you.” She gets no name in return, just a firm handshake from an old woman with tan, weathered skin. “You stay in the middle.” Furthest from the door. Furiosa approves.

“Okay. I have to head back out. Do you have something smaller I can take?” 

The woman nods, points at a pickup truck and says, “Keys inside. Who’s the man?” 

“He’s reliable. If anything happens, Splendid and him are in charge. She’s the pregnant one.” 

Furiosa is itching to get back out. She spares a few seconds to get the girls settled. She fills them in on the plan and then locks the RV up behind them. “Sleep as much as you can. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay,” she adds. 

They all nod, and Capable gives her a long look. 

“You have a gun,” Furiosa checks with Max. He nods. “Don’t fire it. I’ll be back in a few hours.” 

“I could come,” he offers. His hair is mussed, eyes sleepy. 

“No. They know your face. Stay with the girls.” 

All of the girls react to that, the blatant statement of trust. Splendid looks at him with new interest, and the Dag outright marvels at him. It’s a nice moment. 

She drives the truck back to the surface. She’s back on the road in twenty minutes, and then she drives. She goes faster now, because she’s alone and can get herself out of anything. She doesn’t get speeding tickets. And she has shit to do. 

She drives an hour, maybe a hundred miles or so, and she knows she should turn around if she wants to get any sleep at all, but she doesn’t. She keeps driving. Another five minutes, another mile. She pretends it’s to find Joe, to kill Joe, but she knows Joe isn’t stupid enough. And she knows what she’s really looking for won’t be close either, so she keeps driving. Another mile. Another few minutes, searching the horizon for any sign of a person. 

Then, abruptly, she slams on the brakes. Something registered in her unconscious brain, and it took several seconds to sink in but that’s not roadkill. That’s a pale boy in dark cargo pants, trying to stand up. And there’s only one boy it could be. 

He watches her pull the truck over, and he’s never been too subtle so she sees a dozen different emotions flash over his face. When she gets out, he’s settled on staring at the ground. “Where’s Joe?” she asks gruffly. 

“Ten miles back. Stopped for gas and food.”

Ten miles isn’t that far. “How’re you here, then?” 

“Started walking.” He’s trembling so hard, and she can’t tell if it’s fear or not.

“Walking where?” 

“To find you. And the Wives. Please.” He falls to his knees. “I… can I come with you?” 

“Why?” 

“Because I… I don’t have anywhere else to go, I’m…”

“You’re the one who left us for him. He didn’t want you?” 

Nux shakes his head a little, then bobs it. “He was disappointed in me. I failed, I let you take his wives, I didn’t sh-shred you, I should’ve killed you. He said I can’t go to Valhalla, they don’t accept failures. And I failed him. He didn’t make me leave, but. It was just… worse.” 

She hauls him up by the arm and hugs him. He’s crumbles into her embrace, and she tightens her arms on him. He’s dusty, smells like sick and sand and she is so glad she found him. “So you were just going to walk? For how long?” she asks him. 

“Until I found you,” he admits very quietly. 

“Did you take any more of Joe’s drugs? The pills?” 

“Yes, yeah.” She could’ve figured that. He’s been walking for hours, probably hasn’t been fed. 

“You’ll feel sick again.” 

“I know, yes, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wanted him to take me back, and. What do I have to do for you?” he says. “Please, ma’am. I’ll do anything, anything you ask. I want to do what you want. And the Wives, whatever they want. Just please, take me. Please. Please, please-”

She stops his begging. “I came back to find you. Not gonna leave you here now. We have to go now, though. Come on.” 

He’s weak, she has to help him to the car. He was going to keep walking to find them, but he can’t make it even five steps. He shuts his eyes while she gets in and starts the car. “There’s water here for you,” she says. “Food back at the safehouse.” 

“Thank you, thank you. I don’t need food, I’ll sleep on the floor and I’ll… I’ll…” He’s so tired, he can barely talk. 

“You might have to actually sleep on the floor,” she says. “Not a lot of beds in the RV. But you do need food. And until we get there, you can sleep here.” 

He mumbles arguments, but then he falls asleep straight away. In his sleep, he curls up horizontal on seat, his head near her leg. She got him back. Every time she looks down at him, sick and weak as he is, she feels triumphant. She got the kid back.

It’s a long drive back. The sun is rising when they go underground again. Every five more minutes, every extra mile adds up to more than an extra hour. She’s exhausted. But she did it so she drives, and she keeps an eye on the road behind them. 

Max meets her truck when she gets there. He’s clearly been sleeping, woke up for her. “Got him?” he asks when she turns off the car. 

“Yeah. He’s lying on the seat.” 

He comes around and picks him up for her. She’s glad, because she’s exhausted too. She can sleep for maybe an hour or two before they have to get back on the road. She can survive on that, but she won’t be alert by any means. “Is he ill?” Max asks. 

“He’s high. But he’ll be okay.” 

Max leads her into their rooms. The girls are all asleep, sharing beds and pillows. There’s one bed left, and she hesitates between taking it and letting the Warboy have it. Max answers that by setting the boy down on the floor. “I’ll sit up for a while,” he says. 

She nods, too tired to do more, and lies down. She sets a mental alarm for two hours, and falls asleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

They turn onto a different road five minutes after leaving the safehouse, and Furiosa guns it. She doesn’t dare hope this loses Joe completely, but it should buy them some time. 

She saved Nux but she doesn’t trust him so she keeps him up with her, between the seats. Capable claims the passenger seat, sitting cross-legged. Her bare knees are knobby. Capable looks down at him, leaning on her chin. “Was Joe angry?” she asks him. 

“Yeah, very,” Nux nods. He won’t look directly at her for too long. His hands are twisted together in his lap and in the straps on his pants. “He wants you all back.” 

“Not you, though. You went back to him and he kicked you out again,” she observes without any venom. “Why’s that?” 

“I wasn’t kicked out, I was… I was forgotten,” he says, looking ashamed. “He didn’t care if I lived or died, he didn’t even notice me. It’s like I wasn’t there.”

“So you ran away,” she says. 

Nux nods for too long. “I did. In case you wanted me. I can fix the engines, I can defend you, I can steal things for you. Or whatever you want. I think she wants to keep me. Do you?” he asks Furiosa hopefully. 

“For now,” she says. “If you behave.” 

“I can behave,” he nods again. “I can, I will. I want to.” 

“Why?” Capable asks, eyes never leaving his face. 

He looks back at her, confused for a second, and then looks back down. “Because. You noticed me. And it can’t be worse here than with Father Joe.” 

“It was bad there?” Furiosa asks. It’s the first verbal confirmation of it. She wants more. 

“Bad,” Nux agrees, almost scared to say it. “Yes, I think so.” 

Capable tightens her lips. “The boys got the worst of it,” she says. “Joe had to keep them weaker, and scared. But as far as they know, that’s love. So.” 

“What’s love?” Nux asks. 

Capable reaches out slowly and touches his head with a couple fingertips. “You know when you have it,” she says. “And you’re running on empty when you don’t.” 

Nux holds very still for her touch, head ducked low. She notices then a brand at the back of his neck, just like the one on the girls. Joe’s mark. Furiosa keeps her eyes on the road after that. It’s hard to drive with distractions.

Everyone gets food at lunch time. The Dag hands it out. “Are you coming with us?” Furiosa hears her ask Max. “To the Green place.” 

“I don’t think so,” he says. “Seeing as I don’t even know what it is.” 

“A home for lost people. And you look lost.” 

The man laughs a little. “We’ll see.” 

When she gets up to them, the Dag kisses Capable on the forehead as she hands her food. “Are you lonely up here, sister? These aren’t great conversationalists, either of them.” She give Furiosa a crooked smile, dropping food in her lap. 

“I’m good,” Capable says. “Thank you.” 

“Warboy gets some food, right?” the Dag checks. After a nod from Furiosa, she puts his portion in his lap. “There you go, then. Don’t jump out of any windows.” 

“I won’t, I promise I won’t. Thank you.” Nux is shivering through another bout of withdrawal, so he doesn’t eat anything at the moment, but she can tell it’s the thought of it that matters to him. That they thought to feed him like another member of the team. 

“Alright, little sprog, keep your toes on,” the Dag says affectionately before walking away. 

Nux glances at both of them, and if she had to guess what he was thinking, she’d say he’s trying to figure out what that means, if he’s still in their good graces. “If you feel sick, there’s a toilet in the back,” Furiosa says. “You should try to eat something, though.” 

“Okay. What is it?” 

“What?” 

Nux holds up the food in his hands; beef jerky, a protein bar, and applesauce. 

Capable answers him, touching each thing in turn. “This is jerky, it’s dry meat. This is applesauce, it’s good. Made of apples. And that’s a protein bar. It’s for energy.” 

“What’s in it?” 

“I don’t actually know,” she says. “Try it. I think you’ll like it.” 

Nux obeys, nibbling on the jerky first. He keeps the food down. He drinks his water. And he sits there, glancing at Capable when he dares to. 

There’s conversation behind them, low voices and sometimes a grunt or more from Max. They’re making friends, making conversation and making peace. She’s tired, but this makes her feel good. Her team is little and ragtag, but solid. They’re united. They’ll make it. 

“Anything?” she calls back. 

“Nothing,” Cheedo says from the back. “I think we lost them.” 

They haven’t needed to stop, but they’re almost out of gas so they’ll need to soon. Max and her can handle it, because the girls can’t be seen. Nux either. 

She stops at a gas station, not too small, in a little tourist trap that gets plenty of action so their RV won’t stick out. She pulls up to a pump, turns off the car, and then turns around to look at everyone. “Stay down, keep the windows covered, and don’t be seen,” she tells them. “Max and I are going to be the only ones getting out. Capable, get out of sight.” 

Capable pushes Nux out of the way and sits next to him, between the seats. Nux is completely shocked, and he almost doesn’t move because he’s so scared. Furiosa never thought he’d hurt any of the girls, and she doesn’t now. She steps over them to get to the door. Max comes too. “What do we need?” he asks. 

“Clothes for the kids. Some extra blankets and pillows. Soap and towels, anything else you can think of. We’re gonna be on the road for at least three days, if we don’t have any problems.” 

He nods. “Walmart?” It’s next door.

“Where else.” She hands him an envelope of cash. “We’ll wait here. Be quick if you can.” 

“I will. Twenty minutes.” 

The minutes between when she gets in the car and when Max does are stomach-turning. She worries about him, if he got caught or had some kind of bounty on him that he didn’t tell her about. She keeps an eye out for dark cars or police lights and sees nothing. And then she sees him, with a cart full of bags. 

“Toast, help him,” she says, and the girl nods, goes. 

“I can help the wife,” Nux offers quietly, looking at her. 

Furiosa hesitates, but not because she doesn’t know what to say. “If you’re recognized, Joe will find us,” she finally says. “You can help us later.” 

“I won’t run,” he says. “I won’t, I promise ma’am.” 

“The answer’s no.” She directs the unloading. “Girls, take these pillows and blankets back in the bedroom. Clothes on the table. Splendid, you alright?” 

The pregnant girl is pale, but she just nods. “I’m fine. Baby’s moving. Give me the clothes.”

Max is last in, helping Toast so she doesn’t stumble with a big hand on her back. He shuts the door, nods at Furiosa. “Go. We’re okay.”

They go. Capable ducks back to help, and Furiosa wants to help too, but she has to drive. She keeps glancing over her shoulder at them. She needs to know what Max got.

“I can drive,” Nux offers timidly, watching her. 

Furiosa bites her lip and looks down at him. “Fast?” she asks. “Away from Joe?” 

“Yes, yes, wherever you say. I can help you. Please, can I help you?” 

She makes her decision quickly. He couldn’t turn them around without her noticing, and couldn’t slow either. So she nods, and she lets him slip into the seat to drive. “Eighty,” she says. “If we go anything less than eighty, you’re back in handcuffs. Drive safely. Understand?” 

“Yes! I will, yes.” He puts both hands on the wheel and looks straight ahead. She wants to trust him. So she leaves him up there. Every step she takes away, she’s judging the speed. He doesn’t slow down.

Max bought a small mountain of clothes, plain dark T-shirts and long skirts, shorts and yoga pants. “No jeans,” he says while she looks. “I know how hard those are to fit.” 

“Good,” she nods, kneels to empty plastic bags of bottles of shampoo and bars of soap. 

“What are these?” Splendid asks. 

Furiosa looks up to see Max handing her a white plastic bottle. “Vitamins,” he says. “For the baby, so it’s healthy.” That’s right, he was a husband and a father. His wife was pregnant once. Furiosa wonders about him fiercely, all of a sudden.  

Splendid nods, and smiles. “Thank you.” She inspects the side of the bottle. 

He picked up other things like that, little trifles to make them more comfortable. Hairbrushes, blankets. There are some chocolate bars in the bag with the food, some juice and chips and a case of Coke. She gives him a bit of an annoyed look when she sees how much junk food he got. Max gives her an apologetic shrug. 

The girls take turns dressing in the bathroom. The Dag comes out in a long skirt and an olive green shirt. Toast opts for running shorts and a black shirt. Capable too, but she picks green too, and she keeps Nux’s jacket. Cheedo picks longer pants and a black shirt. Max even got a larger size for Splendid, and very stretchy pants for her. He did well. She gives him a smile, and a grateful nod. 

While she’s storing things in cupboards, Capable takes Nux shirts. “Pick a color, Warboy,” she says, a little gruff. After a second, he picks green like her. She holds the wheel while he fumbles with putting it on. And then she sits next to him, in the other seat. 

Furiosa squats between them for a moment after that. “Y’alright?” she asks him. 

“Yes, yes. I’m doing good - aren’t I? I’m going eighty, and I’m wearing a shirt.” His hands are shaking on the wheel a bit, nervous, but he’s a good driver. 

“You’re doing good,” she nods. “Mind if you stay here for a while?” 

“No, ma’am. Don’t mind.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him and you can rest,” Capable volunteers from her other side. She looks at him evenly, green eyes as smooth and blank as a mossy stone. Furiosa can’t tell if she even likes him from her face, but she knows she does from everything else. “We won’t slow down.” Nux shakes his head in agreement. 

“Okay,” Furiosa says after a second. “Then you can drive. Tell me if you feel bad.” 

“Yes, ma’am, I will.”

Furiosa sits on the small couch and tries to tell her body to rest. Max is sitting at the table with Splendid, not talking. The Dag is twirling a little in her new clothes, Toast is braiding Cheedo’s hair sitting on the floor. It’s good. They’re all good. 

Max catches her eye. “You look tired,” he says. 

“I am.” 

“Rest,” he says. “I’ll watch the kids.” 

She fights a smile and a glare. “Okay.” Cheedo tosses her a pillow from the bedroom, and everything really is good. So she lets go, just for a bit. She sleeps. And when she wakes up there’s no commotion or trouble. 

Toast is next to Splendid at the table, sharing a bag of potato chips with her. “They’re so good,” Splendid says. 

Max’s back to her, but there’s a smile in his voice. “They are.” 

“Don’t you want any?” 

“No. They’re for you all. I’ve had them before.” 

Toast raises her voice. “Oi! Capable. Try some of these.” 

“Bring them up here,” Capable calls back. 

Toast crosses in front of Furiosa to do that. Furiosa doesn’t open her eyes, but she hears her soft footfalls, and hears the bag crinkling. “You want some, Warboy?” Toast says quietly.

“Sure, yes. Please.” After a bit, Nux adds, “Good. I like them.” 

“Have a few, then. Max got us a bunch of bags.” 

Capable speaks up. “You feel alright, Nux? You look pale.” 

“I…” He stutters a bit. That’s when Furiosa opens her eyes and gets up. She steps up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder. He flinches and looks up at her, surprised. “Oh, hello ma’am. How are you?” 

He does look pale. “Go,” she says, and clarifies when he looks worried, “I’ll drive. Sit down, you don’t look good. You can drive more later.” 

That’s better. He sits between their seats again, with the bag of chips Toast left for them in his lap. The boy’s a lot calmer now, eating chips with traces of a smile on his face. He seems settled. He talks to Capable when she talks first. 

“How do you feel?” she asks. 

“Okay. Dizzy.” 

“Dizzy? Sick to your stomach?” He nods. “From the driving or from the drugs?” 

“From… yes. Everything.” 

Furiosa glances over, sees Capable give him a long look. “There’s a knot in the bottom of my stomach,” Capable says quietly. “Has been ever since I got in the van with Furiosa. I keep… picturing him grabbing me, taking me back. Locking me in that damn room.” 

“He wouldn’t hurt you,” Nux says. 

“He wouldn’t beat me. Not too much,” Capable says evenly. “He doesn’t want us permanently damaged. But there are other ways to hurt a person.”

Nux doesn’t know what she’s saying. He looks at her, bemused, and says, “He said you were chosen. The Wives. To be better, and perfect. Why would he hurt you?” 

“He said a lot of things. He said we were at war with the outside world. But the outside world is rescuing us. I wouldn’t take what he said as truth.” Capable chews on her thumbnail, looking out the window. “Some men just like to hurt. He hurt you, all you boys. You’ve got the scars to prove it.” 

Furiosa glances down at him. She sees some thin marks across his hands, some deep lines through his lips, of all places, and some marks on his cheeks. He’s picking at the hem of his shirt a little, which makes her think he’s hiding more. “What did he do?” she asks. 

Capable answers, her eyes still on Nux. “He did beat them. For anything. Touching us, speaking to him disrespectfully, breaking part of his cars.” 

“He punished us when we made mistakes,” Nux protests weakly. 

“He was cruel. But if you want to go back again, by all means go. Walk hundreds of miles back for his disapproval and his indifference. But you won’t be able to come back. Because you left on purpose the second time, and he shreds people who leave. Unless you don’t think he’ll hurt you,” she adds. She’s being cruel to him. 

“Easy,” Furiosa says. “Not his fault.” And Capable leaves instead of answering. 

In her absence, Nux starts muttering to himself. “Stupid, _stupid_. Don’t talk back. Don’t, don’t _don’t_. Stupid.” And he hits himself in the head, keeps hitting hard enough to be worrisome. 

Furiosa snaps at him. “Stop it, or I’ll tie you to the bed.”

“I made her unhappy.”

“She is unhappy. But you didn’t make her that way.” 

Nux pushes away the potato chips unhappily. “I did.”

Furiosa looks ahead and keeps driving. Splendid comes up then, her hand on the small of her back, and she steps over Nux to sit in the other seat. “Something happened,” she says, sounding a little weary. “Capable’s locked herself in the bathroom. Tell me what happened, Nux.” 

Nux is silent for so long that Furiosa has to look over. He’s staring at the girl. “Splendid,” he says in quiet awe. “You’re… splendid.” 

“His favorite. I know,” she says. “Heard it enough. He was always so keen on telling me. And I’d rather prefer that you not tell me that anymore. I’m done hearing it. But don’t do that,” she adds quickly, catching his hand when he tries to hit himself again. “Don’t hurt yourself. You didn’t know I didn’t like it. And now that you know, you won’t do it. Right?” 

“Yes, yes I promise, I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.” 

She stops him, still holding his wrist kindly. “I know you are. It’s okay. We’re equal here.” 

He stammers for a bit but nothing comes out. She lets go of his wrist and reaches out. She goes slowly, but he still flinches at her touch. Splendid doesn’t stop. She puts her hand over his head, and she leaves it there. “Capable isn’t upset with you,” she says. “Not your fault.”

“She doesn’t want me here but I can’t go,” Nux tells her. It seems he’s getting tearful. “I should go, but no one wants me.” 

“We want you,” Splendid says firmly. Simple as that. And she pulls him over to lean against her chair. His head ends up on her leg, and she lets it stay. The next time Furiosa looks over, he’s asleep. 

“Wow,” Furiosa says quietly. 

Splendid keeps circling her fingertips over his head. “They just need a firm hand,” she says. “He’s always telling them what to do and think, I don’t think they know what to do otherwise. And he’s scared. And sad.” 

“You’re going to be a great mom.” 

“Thank you.” Splendid smiles, looking down at him. “Are you a mother?” 

“No. I’ve been too busy with... work.”

“You make a career of saving people or something?” 

Furiosa huffs out something almost a laugh. “No. The opposite. This is an anomaly.” 

The girl stops pushing. She nods slowly, and keeps petting the Warboy’s head. “Capable always had a soft spot for the boys,” she murmurs. “He called them pups. Maybe to make them less human, I don’t know. Capable always cried when he hurt them. She hurts for them as much as for herself. But she doesn’t want to cry anymore. I think that’s the problem.” 

“Okay.” 

Splendid looks out her window, puts her free hand over her stomach and sits there comfortably. “If he starts to hurt himself again, stop him,” she finally says. “He’ll stop if he knows someone cares enough to stop him. He doesn’t mind if you order him around.” 

“Good to know.” Furiosa doesn’t know what she’s feeling. It’s good. “We’re going to drive overnight, since we don’t have to stop for bathroom breaks. You should try to get lots of sleep. Pregnancy’s hard.” 

“It is,” Splendid agrees. “But at least I have help. The vitamins and such.” 

“Yeah. That was kind of him. Max.” 

The girl nods. “Very. I think… he’s been lonely.” 

He probably has. Furiosa sure had been. She didn’t even know it before she had a car full of people to take care of. Now, she’s not sure what she’s going to do without it. Part of her wants this forever.

 

Sleeping arrangements are a little tight, but more cozy than uncomfortable. Splendid gets the bed, sharing it with Cheedo and the Dag. Toast opts to take the floor back in the bedroom, outfitted with new blankets and pillows. Capable sleeps on the floor in the middle, burrowed up in blankets, and Nux stays between the front two seats, quietly awake. She thinks he feels comfortable here. She wonders if it has anything to do with her. 

Max comes up to join her after everyone else is settled in. “You gonna sleep tonight?” he asks her, stepping over Nux awkwardly. His left leg is stiff, so he kicks him a little bit. “Sorry,” he mumbles, clumsily patting the boy’s head. 

“Maybe,” Furiosa says. “If all stays good.” 

“You were up all last night, looking for this one,” Max says. “One of us can drive instead.” 

“Okay.” 

Nux cranes his head to look at her. “Looking for me?” he repeats. “You were looking for me? Why? Why me?” 

“Because.” She couldn’t even tell herself why. She just felt she should. “Because,” she tries again. “You needed to be saved too.” 

Max gives her a sharply insightful look. Nux just looks dazed. “Do you want me?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “I do. You’re a very good mechanic. Here.” She gives him a chocolate bar from the cupholder. “Eat.” He obeys, like Splendid said he would. The candy keeps him quiet and occupied, and it’s a reward. She thinks that’s what you do for kids, reward them. 

The highway is quiet, lights flashing over them as they pass under them, casting intermittent light over their faces. It’s peaceful driving now. She feels good. For the first time, she has a moment to think. The past two days weren’t full of solid decision-making. She trusted a stranger, she wasted time on a boy who ran away from them. She abandoned her mission and went completely rogue, and she doesn’t regret a single thing. She’s working off of something bigger and deeper than a case file. She’s working off her conscience, her gut. And she’s happy. 

“Are you in a question-answering mood?” Max asks quietly. “If I stay vague.” 

“Let’s see.” 

“What’s your real job?”

He only sounds curious. And Nux won't understand anyways. “Sniper,” she says. “What did you do in the army?” 

“Marines,” he says. “Black ops in the Middle East.” 

“Shrapnel in your leg?” 

“Yeah,” he nods slowly. “IED.” He rubs the leg again, slowly. “Where are you taking these girls? Really. A green place?” 

She can’t tell him that. “You’ll see,” she says. “I can’t tell you more about that. It’s safe, they’ll be protected. You’ll probably be allowed to see it, but I might have to blindfold you. I haven’t decided yet.” 

He shrugs, amused more than anything else. “Are you staying with them?” 

“I don’t know.” She looks down at Nux, who’s enjoying this chocolate more than anyone has ever liked anything in their entire life. She can’t look back at the girls, but she can picture them, safe and clothed and tired. They’re safe because of her. Could she really leave them after everything? She doesn’t know. 

“So if you’re a sniper,” Max says slowly, “how did you end up with a van-full of kids? How’d you even get close enough?” 

“Long story.” Furiosa isn’t ready to talk about that yet, the details of what will probably be called insubordination, and what will probably be the reason she’ll never fire another shot from a rifle for the U.S. government again. That’s the part she’s trying to avoid thinking about. “Tell me about your family.” 

“Wife, kid. Gone when I got back from war.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Thank you.” He nods. 

“When?” 

“Three years ago. Took a year to hunt down the man that did it. Since then, I’ve been… wandering. Spending some time on the road.” 

“Stealing campers you don’t know how to drive,” she adds. 

He smiles, huffs his breath out through his nose and smiles at her. “Made some mistakes.” 

“Pretty big one.” She’s smiling too, though. “Do you want to sleep? I’m good for a while.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah. I’ve got this one, if I need anything.” She nudges Nux with her knee and gets him to smile. “He’s a better driver than you anyways.” 

“Thank you,” Nux mumbles, blushing. “I’ll drive if you want me to.” 

“Do that,” Max says, pointing at Nux. “This kid’s gotten the most sleep out of all of us.” When she still hesitates, he adds, “You can have the other chair, I’ll take the middle. And I’ll sit up.” 

She gives in then, takes the passenger seat and naps, curled up facing Nux. She watches him for a bit, watches him focus on the road and settle into the seat. Max stretches out his legs, leaning back against the dash. His hair is hopelessly messy. It’s charming by now, like the mud he tracks everywhere and the clumsiness his hands have when he tries to be kind. 

“Nux,” she says quietly. “Do you know anything about yourself? Your parents, or your birthday or anything like that.” 

He doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Parents gave me to him, I think. I don’t know. Why?” 

She doesn’t have a reason, even though she keeps asking. “How old were you when you started working in the garage?” 

“I don’t know. As far back as I remember.” 

Max seems to understand. “How old were you when you started shooting?” he asks her. 

“Twelve. Won competitions.” She falls silent after that, not because she’s scared to talk more, but because she’s thinking. “Nux,” she says eventually. 

“Yes, ma’am?” 

“If you feel sick and we’re asleep, wake us up. If you’re tired, wake one of us up. I mean it.” 

“Okay, yes, I will. Thank you.” 

She’ll never get used to being thanked for human compassion. She drifts off instead of trying to answer. 

Nux does wake her up, nudging her when the sky is still completely dark. “Sorry, ma’am, but I don’t know what to do,” he whispers. There are police sirens behind them, and he’s trembling with fear. 

“Slow down,” she says, and as he’s obeying she leans over Max to hug the boy around the neck. She may brush her lips over his head - she’s not sure if it makes contact or not. But she wants to. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Go to the back. If the girls wake up, tell them to stay quiet. I’ll handle it.” 

He nods and obeys. Max rouses with a start when she’s getting in the driver’s seat. “What’s happening?” he asks. 

“Get in the passenger seat, pretend you’re still asleep, make sure your gun is hidden.” 

He doesn’t argue, and she’s intensely grateful. She can hear whispers behind them, Nux filling the girls in as she stops the RV. It will work if they all follow her orders. 

The officer comes up slowly, shining his light in on her when she rolls the window down. “Good evening, ma’am. Are you aware you were going eighty-five in a sixty-five?” he says.

She tries to remember how to act. “Sorry, sir. My husband and I are both tired, we’re just trying to stop somewhere safe.”

That doesn’t seem to charm him. He says, “Is this your vehicle, ma’am?” 

Everything clicks. The original owners reported this stolen, he ran the license plates and saw it. His hand is on his gun. And running the plates possibly alerted Joe, if he was smart enough to make a note of them himself. “Absolutely, officer,” she says. “Let me get you the registration.” And as she leans over to the glovebox, she whispers to Max, “Gun. Don’t shoot.” 

He pulls his gun in an instant and points it at the cop. “Easy,” he says. “No sudden movements.” Furiosa gets her gun out too, and points it at the cop so he can’t duck out of the way. 

“Give me your gun,” she says. He obeys slowly, hand shaking, but she just wants it to dismantle it and she does, breaking it down completely. “Nux?” she raises her voice. 

“Yes?”

“Go break his engine and radio. You have sixty seconds. Can you do it?” 

“Yes, yes. Can I get a knife?” 

Max uses his free hand to pull a knife from near his ankle and give it to him. “Be careful,” he says. She gets the feeling even he doesn’t know if he’s being serious. 

Nux nods though, and he darts out the door. For all the seconds that he’s gone, Furiosa feels deeply and completely afraid. That he’ll run, that he’ll hurt himself or be hurt. The girls are silent, but her fears aren’t. 

But then Nux is darting back in, crouching next to her, saying, “I did it, the car won’t move. No radio.” And if she had a hand free, she’d hug him. 

“Good,” she says. “Come here. Take this gun and keep it pointed at him. Be careful.” 

He nods and obeys, leaning half out the window to fit next to her. Furiosa starts the car then, and gets out of there as fast as she can. The car lets out a collective sigh of relief. Max puts his gun down on his knee and scrubs his hands over his face. Nux is trembling with adrenaline, the girls are stirring. 

“We need a new car,” Furiosa says. “This one is blown. Girls, you up?” she calls back. 

“I am,” Capable says, voice rough. 

“Pack everything.” She looks at Nux then, where he’s crammed between her seat and the door. “Good job. You did really well. Can you go help Capable?” 

He nods several times then scoots over her lap to get out. “Furiosa,” he says before he goes further. “What about the gun?” And he holds it up, shaking a little. 

She takes it from him, but this time she kisses his head for sure, and he shivers. “Thank you,” she says. “You did good.” He slips out of her grip. 

Max doesn’t say anything about that. “I can steal another car,” he says. 

“We should try to buy it,” she says. “They’ll expect us to steal.” 

“Do you have enough money to buy a car?” he frowns. 

She has about ten grand in cash. They’re probably tracking her accounts, too. “Another van, maybe. We can put all the seats down for the kids to sleep, it’ll work.” 

“Buy some duffle bags, fill them up and use them as pillows,” Max nods. “Okay. Next city, we stop.” He runs his hands over his hair a couple times. “Why didn’t you show him your badge?” 

“Because they don’t know where I am yet. Don’t know I took the kids. I don’t want to give them that if I don’t have to. And it’d just bring up more questions, with the cop. Why I have a car full of fugitives.” She tucks the gun back in her waistband. “Why I look like a prisoner of war.” 

Max glances at her. “Is it a bad time for me to ask you that?”

She’s abruptly aware of her short hair, her plain clothes. “Part of my cover. Had to look like a guy to get close enough to make any kind of shot,” she says. “Hair was getting in my eyes anyways. When I was shooting.”

“Dedication,” he says.

“Yep.” 

They drive for another hour before they reach a big enough city to have a used car dealership. She pulls into the parking lot, and Max stops her before she turns the RV off. “I’ll take it to the Walmart and leave it in the parking lot. Wipe it down. Get the stuff we need.” 

“You can’t drive it.” 

“So I’ll take the boy.” 

She nods at that. “Okay. Take him. Don’t lose track of him.” 

Max gives her a crooked smile. “Won’t. Hey, Nux,” he calls, and the boy comes to him. “Help me. We’re going on a mission.”

“Okay, yes,” Nux says. He looks between the two of them. “A good mission?” 

“Yeah. You drive.” 

Furiosa gets out with the girls and all their stuff. The man doesn’t ask too many questions once she gives him three grand in cash, and she inspects every inch of the van for rust or damage. The seats fold into the ground, and the interior is clean. It’s good. So she tells the girls to get in and she stashes the bag of guns and money near her feet.

“I miss the RV,” Cheedo says. 

Splendid is pale. She won’t let go of her water bottle, and the Dag stays at her side like a vigilant lion. She watches the men in the lot intently. 

Max and Nux walk back with their purchases over their shoulders. There’s something similar in the tilt of their shoulders, the motion of them walking. Maybe because they’re both men, or maybe because Nux is imitating this new masculine role model. But she’s got a word for what she thinks they are, one that she’s not ready to say just yet. She doesn’t have to say it to feel it, though. And she feels it. 

Max gets in, and Nux slips into his spot between the two seats. He's wearing leather fingerless gloves that are new. Furiosa looks pointedly at Max. "What are those?"

"Driving gloves." Max is unrepentant. 

No time to really argue. "We need to conserve our money," she points out as she pulls the van into the road. 

"I miss the RV," Cheedo sighs again. 

Furiosa has to agree. She misses the bathroom most of all. Without that, they'll need to make stops. Probably every two hours, with how pregnant Splendid is, and even that might be a conservative estimate. This isn’t going to be easy by any means.

The first five minutes, everyone’s silent. Tension is keeping everyone quiet. Furiosa finally breaks the silence. 

“Okay. New plan. We drive for as long as possible. We stop for bathroom breaks as little as possible. As few of you as possible get out. We’re going to be cramped. Joe’s people probably know where we are by now. They know we’re on this road, and sooner or later, they’ll probably find us.” She waits a second, glances in her mirrors to make sure the kids aren’t too scared. Nux flexes his hands in his new gloves. The girls look stony. 

“When they find us, you need to know what to do. Stay down, so they can’t shoot you through the windows. If you think you can make the shots, I’ll give you a gun. Who wants one?” 

“Me,” Toast says. 

“I can shoot,” Nux offers, still timid. 

“Okay.” Furiosa looks at Max, and Max hands guns to each of them. “Full clip?” she asks. 

He checks before he hands the guns over. Both are fully loaded. “Put these somewhere safe,” she tells them. “Not in your clothes. Somewhere you can reach easily, wherever you’re going to sit for the rest of the ride.” She looks back to see Toast putting it in a cupholder, right in reach. “You going to stay up here?” Furiosa asks Nux. He nods. 

“Then - do you still have Max’s knife?” He nods. “Cut open the seat stuffing. Put it in there.” 

Nux obeys, then hands the knife back to Max. “Thank you,” he says. 

Max nods awkwardly. For a man who had a kid, he sure is stiff with children. 

The girls negotiate their spaces. Capable sits behind Max’s seat, legs crossed. Toast is next to her, further towards the back. Behind Furiosa is Splendid and Cheedo, and the Dag has claimed the part of the van closest to the trunk, to serve as lookout. They fill duffle bags with food, water bottles, clothes, and set up boundaries. And then, while Furiosa drives and Max cleans his knife obsessively, the girls talk. 

“Do you think you’ll marry someone else?” Cheedo asks speculatively. 

Splendid answers. “Never,” she says. “Men are pigs. My child will be raised by his mother, and by all of you. I don’t need another husband.” 

“Would you take a wife, then?” the Dag asks. “I might. That sounds like fun.” 

Capable snorts. “I don’t think so. I want a husband. But a partner, not some old bag to order me around. I want love. Real love.” 

“Right, you want to be Cinderella,” Toast sighs. “I forgot.” 

“Shut up. I do not. I just want ordinary love.” Capable sticks her hands deep in her pockets. “Something that’s not… that doesn’t hurt.” 

“I’m going to hurt him back,” Toast mumbles. “If I see his face, I’ll shred it. Explode it.” 

“Hopefully we won’t see his face again,” Splendid says. “I’m so tired of it. Ugly big old horse teeth.” 

“Splendid!” Furiosa thinks that’s Cheedo. 

“Well it’s true. He had the ugliest face I’ve ever seen.” Splendid giggles then. 

The Dag snorts, Capable laughs and says “The worst face. It’s fat and long all at once. He’s a mean old man. If he tries to touch me again, I’ll punch him.” 

“Furiosa,” the Dag calls. “Do other men take many wives?” 

“Sure,” she says. “They’re usually in other cults, though. And usually they let every man take several wives, not just one.” 

“Every man?” Cheedo repeats, turning and kneeling over Nux’s legs to peer between the seats at Furiosa. “Are there many? Many men.” 

“Yeah, dozens. Hundreds, depending on the group. The leaders had as many as sixty wives each, some as young as you, some my age or older.” 

“But how did they have enough wives for the men?” 

“The same way that Joe kept his warboys down. They controlled the men with fear and picked who got what. And if any boys argued, they threw them out.” 

“Yeah,” Capable says. “Only Joe killed them. The boys that fought.” 

“Well, he said he did,” Cheedo says, sitting back in her seat. “Maybe he let them go. He was just an old man.” 

“You think Father Joe would let people actually go? With what he’s done to us, you think that?” Capable snaps. There’s absolute silence from the other girls. “Tell them, Nux,” she prompts. “You know what he did better than me.” 

Nux glances up at Furiosa, for some reason. “I… I don’t…” 

“Come here,” Capable orders. Nux scoots forward obediently, so he’s out of Furiosa’s peripheral vision. “What did he do to warboys who didn’t listen?” Capable asks. 

“He… well, he shredded them piece by piece. Cut their skin from their bones and…”

He’s quiet for so long that Furiosa turns to look at him. The boy is shaking, head down, and Capable puts her hand over the back of his head then. “Made you watch,” she says. “Right? Made all the other boys watch.” He must nod or something, because Capable speaks again. “Right. So I don’t want to hear anything about how Joe was just an old man.” 

“She didn’t mean it that way,” Splendid says after a second. “Don’t be mean.” 

“No, Capable’s right. And we left them there,” Toast says. “The boys. We left them all there with him.” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Splendid says.

“We aren’t from one of those cult things,” Capable says after a second, clear and concise. “We’re from Father Joe. Only us five know what it’s like to be his wives. But all the boys get it too. They were hurt by him too. And it didn’t occur to anyone to do anything to help them?” 

“It didn’t occur to you,” Cheedo snaps.

“I know!” Capable yells, too loud in the small van. “I know it didn’t occur to me. But at least I know that it should’ve.” 

“Wait,” Splendid cuts in. “So you’re angry at everyone for not knowing we _should’ve_ been upset that we couldn’t help the boys? That’s why you’ve been so snippy?” 

“No!” 

The car’s quiet for a while. Surprisingly, it’s Max who talks. Quietly he addresses the car. “I used to start fights. Because I was angry. Wasn’t them I was angry at.” 

Furiosa glances at him. Capable says nothing. But when Furiosa looks next, Nux is sitting between Capable and Toast, letting them try on his gloves. She hears a mumbled apology from Capable after a bit, and everything calms down. 

“Do you want to stay with us?” the Dag asks. “At the green place?” 

“I-I… I would like that,” Nux stammers. “Very much. Are you… do you… do you want that? I thought… you said you didn’t want men, I thought. I’m…” 

Furiosa looks back at them again. Capable is leaning against him, rubbing his leg reassuringly. “We don’t want husbands,” Toast says. “But you’re a friend.” 

“Yes,” Splendid says after a second, soft and kind. “You are. We should… find a way, somehow, to keep an eye out for other warboys, escaped or something. We’re the closest thing to family for them.” 

She’s right. With the compound destroyed, there will be sixty lost boys looking for mothers. Furiosa will have to keep that in mind, however they end up. These aren’t the only children needing rescue. Not by a long shot.

“I’d like to be your friend,” Nux says shyly. “All of you are so…” 

“If you say shiny, I’ll rip your ear off.” Toast sounds cross. 

The other girls all laugh a little at that. "She wouldn't really," Capable adds with a smile in her voice. 

"Oh. Well if you'll have me, I'd stay," Nux says. “If you all want me to, and like… feel good about it. I don’t want to make you stop feeling good.” 

“We could use a boy sometimes, I think,” the Dag says. “I do think so. To lift heavy things.” 

Furiosa smiles, looks back to see Nux nodding enthusiastically. “I’ll lift things,” he says. “Anything you need. I want to help. You’re all the best, most… most good wives-”

“Sisters,” Splendid says. “Not wives anymore.” 

“Most good sisters, then.” Nux corrects himself. “Best sisters.” 

“Alright,” Capable mumbles, sounding a little embarrassed. “We get it. You can stay.” 

“Thank you, thank you. Only if you want.” 

The kids all fall quiet then. They have a connection, the girls especially, that doesn’t seem to need words. It’s enough that they’re all together. And as a single unit, they’ve brought Nux into the group as well. They’re survivors together.

“Montana,” Furiosa says to Max. “Right?” 

“That was the thought. Where are you going after all this?” 

“I don’t know. It depends. Jail, maybe. Armed kidnapping, grand theft, and assaulting an officer of the law probably, for pulling the gun on that cop.” 

“Is it kidnapping when they’re willing?” 

“If they’re minors, yes. And three of them are. Four, maybe, with Nux. I think he’s eighteen, though. But one more doesn’t really matter.” She keeps her eyes on the road.

“Do they know?” 

“No.” 

“They’re talking about that green place like you’ll all stay there,” Max points out. 

“I know.”

“But you’re inviting me to stay with them when you won’t even be there?” he says. “Are you sure they want that?” 

“I’m pretty sure.” 

“Hmm.” He taps on his knee thoughtfully. 

Their first bathroom break is quick. Only Splendid, it only takes two minutes to get back on the road. Their second bathroom break is three hours later, more of the girls and Nux go. Still only five minutes. Their third, the sky is halfway to dark, streaked with deep pinks and purples. For the fourth, Furiosa gets out under the starry sky herself. 

Max takes over driving for her then, since he can handle this van. Furiosa naps in the passenger seat while he drives, hears soft conversation from the girls who are awake. Capable is murmuring to Nux behind Furiosa’s seat. 

Splendid asks for the sixth stop. Furiosa only half hears it and Max’s grunted agreement. She wakes at the bright gas station lights, but not all the way. Enough to smile at Nux hurrying to help her out of the car to the bathroom. They look like normal kids, a pregnant woman and her worried friend. It’s sweet. 

She’s not vigilant enough. It’s just another stop. Except for the part when Splendid and Nux gets cut off from them by Joe’s truck, gun pointed out the window at them.

Max hits her arm hard to waker her and gets out of the car before she does, his gun drawn. “Hey,” he shouts. “Get away from my kids.” 

Furiosa feels that sentiment echoing in her chest as she points at her own gun at the truck. “Leave Splendid and Nux here.” 

“You can keep the pup,” Joe calls. “I’ll just shred him. Already got started on that a few years ago, didn’t I?” 

“Don’t leave me,” Furiosa hears Splendid whisper. 

Nux is absolutely drained of all color. “I won’t,” he promises, and he puts his arm around her. 

Furiosa feels a surge of pride. “Splendid, Nux. Walk to me,” she says. 

“Don’t even try to touch her, you dirty old bastard,” Toast hollers out the van window. Furiosa turns to see all the girls are hanging out, looking furious. Toast and Capable both have guns pointed at Joe’s truck. “Leave them alone.” 

Splendid gets a tight grip on Nux’s arm. Then she raises her chin proudly, regally. And she walks around Joe’s truck fearlessly, shielding Nux with her body. Even Joe yelling for her doesn’t get any reaction, not even a hint of a tremor. She gets them behind Furiosa and Max’s cover, and then she stops. She kisses Nux on the forehead, getting on tip toes. “You’re the strongest man I know,” she says to him.

Nux nods, awkwardly reverent, and then he turns to face Joe again. Max hands him another gun he pulls from an ankle holster, and Furiosa almost smiles.

“Kill him,” Max says. 

Furiosa’s been considering it. She could. They outnumber him. His boys must be somewhere behind them. “No,” she finally says, and she takes her knife out of its ankle holster. “Cover me.” She goes up to the back of Joe’s truck, where he has no shot on her.

“I’ll tell your boss where you are,” Joe says.

Furiosa laughs and slashes both the back tires. “Drive,” she says to Nux, walking back towards them. “As fast as you can. Max, in the back. We’re going to have company soon.” 

Nux stops her, touching her arm. “You want me to drive?” he checks quietly. 

“Yes,” she says, confused until she realizes that it’s the trust that’s confusing him. “Yes,” she says again, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re with us, aren’t you?” 

“To the end of the road,” he says, looking in her eyes. His are so bright and blue. 

“Good. I know. So put that gun away and let’s go.” She pats his back, and he practically jumps into the driver’s seat. “Alright, girls,” she says as Nux revs the engine and burns rubber on the way out of the gas station. “This is real. Splendid and Cheedo, I want you to lie down. Dag, you want a gun?” 

“Sure,” the Dag says. “Sounds fun.” 

“Okay. Then you stay up.” Furiosa hands a gun back to her. “Roll down every window you can. If they shoot them in, it’ll hurt.” 

She hears shattering glass then, and looks back to see Max shaking out his hand wrapped in a T-shirt. He’s punched out the rear windshield. “How much longer to the green place?” is all he says when they make eye contact. 

“More than twelve hours.” 

“Fuck,” he says loudly. 

“Fuck,” Nux repeats under his breath. Furiosa feels like she should scold him. 

With how fast Nux drives, they make it through the night without any sign of Joe or his followers. They stop for gas when the sky is streaked with pink, and Max covers the girls and Nux as they use the bathroom, and then he covers them while Furiosa goes. Then, it’s back on the road again. No one is eating - everyone is too scared. 

Max naps, leaning against Toast who seems to be confused about how she ended up in this situation. Furiosa can’t sleep. Adrenaline has kept her up for more than two days before, on missions. She can make it today. 

“What did he do to you?” she asks Nux when the car is silent. “What was he talking about?” 

“Um. He… he cut me.” He puts his hand to his lips. “I, um. All the way through. Started to shred me. Warning, as a warning.” 

“Why?” 

Nux looks down for a long couple seconds, but the car doesn’t swerve. “I… because I spoke out of turn. Too many times,” he finally says. 

“What?” she says, and then realizes that she didn’t mishear him and the question confuses him. “That’s… did he do it a lot? To a lot of people?” 

“No,” Nux says. “Basically everyone else did what they were supposed to.” 

Furiosa puts her hand on his arm, and his flinch has new meaning. “You aren’t going back,” she says. “I’m protecting you too, not just the girls.”

“I know, I know, thank you ma’am. I’ll do my best to… to deserve it. And protect them, I’ll protect them.” He adjusts his hands on the wheel. 

“You don’t have to deserve it.” 

He nods a lot, and then he’s nodding harder and wiping his eyes. “Are you my mother?” he asks then, looking her in the eyes. “I think you might be.” 

She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t get a chance to figure it out. “We’ve got company,” the Dag calls. “Joe in his truck and more with warboys.” 

“Faster,” Furiosa tells Nux. He nods, gives the engine more gas, but its top speed is pretty close to what they’re going. Still, they manage to stay far enough ahead that for another hour, Joe’s trucks stay just on the horizon. 

Max is awake now, keeping his eye on their followers. “Does the green place have a defense system?” he asks Furiosa. “When we get there, can we keep them out?” 

“Yes,” she says, and she feels everyone else in the car get hopeful. 

“How much distance do we need going in?” he asks next. 

Furiosa looks back at the cars following them. “Not much. And we won’t be there for another two hours. But I need a phone to call in.” 

Max pulls one out of his pocket and passes it up to her via the girls. She’s surprised, but most surprisingly not scared. He could’ve betrayed them at any moment, and yet all she feels is grateful now. 

“Hello?” 

“This is Charlie,” she says. “I’m coming in hot.” 

“Roger that. How long out?” 

“Two hours, give or take. I’m in a black minivan, seven friendlies with me. Five girls, two boys.” 

“Alright.” 

“Okay. See you soon.” 

“Drive safe.” 

Furiosa snorts. “Right.” And she hangs up, sends the phone back to Max through the girls.

“Charlie?” Nux asks. “What is that?” 

“My name,” she says. “I’ll explain later.” 

He nods, drives faster. “Okay.” 

The cars creep closer, and the sun rises. “Why aren’t they firing?” Cheedo says after a bit. 

“Because gunfire is police attention,” Max says. “And I bet they aren’t good shots.” 

Furiosa pulls the shotgun out when they’re maybe twenty minutes out, and she crawls into the back. “Someone go up there,” she says. Capable crawls up to the front, and Furiosa sits next to Max in the back. “Does this shoot true?” she asks. 

He nods, and she carefully sights her shot. They’re maybe a quarter mile back, not even that far. She takes out Joe’s truck first, shooting out the tires. He falls back quickly, and it’s just the other cars with warboys following them. 

“Don’t hurt them,” Splendid says, and before they can answer she winces and moans. 

“Contractions?” Furiosa asks. 

“I think so. Yes.” 

Max puts down his gun and scoots over to her side. “Keep them back,” he tells her, and he takes Splendid’s hand. “Squeeze when it hurts,” he tells her, and then makes a pained face at how hard she starts squeezing. 

“Take the next exit,” Furiosa yells up to Nux. 

Nux obeys, swerving a little and Splendid cries out, pained. “Sorry, sorry!” he says. 

“It’s _okay_ ,” Splendid says through gritted teeth. 

It’s not okay. They can’t deliver a baby here. “Hold on,” Furiosa says. “Almost there.” She keeps her sights on the warboys, and when they follow them off the highway she shoots out their tires too. 

They don’t stop. 

“Why haven’t they stopped?” she says, half to herself. “It’s dangerous.” 

“He’ll shred them if they stop,” the Dag says grimly. 

One of the cars starts smoking. They still don’t even stop for that. Furiosa thinks she sees a wheel fall off, and then that car skids to a stop. She thinks she even sees the boys from the car running after them anyways. 

“Jesus,” Max says, switching hands linked with Splendid. “That bad?” 

“Yes,” she says, pain making her voice tight. 

Furiosa can’t shoot the cars again because they’ve fallen too far back, but they’re ten minutes out and they’re still being followed. This isn’t great. But it’s better, and Joe isn’t here. She thinks they can make it if Joe isn’t here. 

“Nux,” she calls. “Slow down. Sharp turn to the right, you’ll see a blue mailbox, turn right before it, not into the driveway.” 

“Yes, ma’am. Hold on, everybody.” He makes the turn cheerfully. For thirty seconds, they’re driving through underbrush until it clears out, and they’re on a dirt road. It’s a long, bumpy ride, but nobody complains. 

One car misses the turn and crashes into a tree. Another makes it into the fake driveway and almost immediately stops because of the spikes embedded in it. There’s only one car left that makes it, trailed by dozens of warboys, running or limping for glory.

“Baby’s coming,” Max says shortly. 

“No,” Splendid says in anguish. “Not before we’re safe, not while Joe could get him. This is my baby, not his.” 

“Okay,” Max says. “Okay. It’s okay. We won’t let him take the baby. We’re almost there. Shh.” And he scrapes back some of the sweaty hair on her forehead gently. He must’ve been a very good father. 

“Stop,” Furiosa yells to Nux. “Stop the car. Run inside. Can you carry her?” she asks Max.

“Yes.”

“Get out first. Capable and Toast, cover them. Cheedo, you go first with Nux. My name is Charlie, tell them you’re with me. Walk straight down the road, there’s a gate, it should be open. Go through it. I’ll follow.” 

Nux gets out, and he takes the duffle bag of cash and the few remaining guns with him. He shields Cheedo as he walks her through the trees and things disguised as trees to the gates. Furiosa is proud of him for remembering the guns. Then Max goes, carrying Splendid against his chest and covered by the two girls. The Dag stays with Furiosa, looking out the back of the van. “What do I shoot, boss?” she asks. 

“Nothing. Don’t shoot them.” Furiosa had an idea. “Keep your gun up, but don’t shoot unless they’re going to kill you. And don’t kill them.” 

“I’ll try,” the Dag snorts. And she hoists her gun up. Furiosa keeps her gun up too. The warboys don’t have guns. He doesn’t trust him with them, probably. She trusts all her people with her life. 

“Boys,” Furiosa calls. “Warboys. I’ve got something for you. A reward.” 

That stops some of them, slowing their run to a walk while they’re looking for a trap. They’ve probably never gotten rewards. “Catch,” she calls, and the closest one flinches at the word. She throws him a bag of chips. 

“What’s that?” another one asks him. 

“Dunno,” the boy holding it says. He’s older, maybe close to his twenties, but still a boy. 

“Open it, why don’t you,” the Dag tells him. “They’re chips, I like them.” 

They worship the wives. Joe taught them to do that. So he listens to the Dag, and opens the bag, tries a few. “What is this?” he says suspiciously then. “Is this poison?” 

“No, silly,” the Dag says, and Furiosa gets a gut feeling the girl understands her plan. “Joe’s full of shit, the food from out here is way better than the slop he gives us. Who wants a chocolate bar? It’s sweet, like sugar.” 

A smaller boy, barely a teenager at most, raises his hand timidly. He catches what the Dag throws him and rips it open to try a bite. “It’s good,” he says in surprise. 

The next couple warboys run up. “What’s this?” one asks, slowing down. 

“A gift from the Wife,” the little boy says. 

“Gifts for all of you,” the Dag says. “Just stay back. I don’t want to hurt you, okay? I couldn’t send you to Valhalla, neither of us could. You know that. Killed by a woman? No god would take you for that. So stay back, and I’ll give you some more.” 

The boys come running or limping up in twos and threes, and Furiosa holds her gun on them while the Dag tosses food out the back to them. 

“Why do we get gifts?” she hears one of them ask. 

“Because you’re behaving,” the Dag says firmly. “If you continue to behave, we’ll be nice.” 

“Be nice?” 

“Furiosa!” Nux and Capable have come back for them. Nux in particular looks confused to see the other warboys not trying to hurt them. “What’s happening?” 

“I’ve got kind of a plan,” Furiosa says to him. “Open the back.” Nux opens the back of the van obediently and the boys all do give them a calculating look. Nobody attacks.

Capable looks at her, then to the silent growing crowd. Then she looks at Nux. She’s still wearing his jacket. Something behind her eyes clicks. “Give me the first aid kit,” she says. 

Nux gets it for her, and Capable puts her gun down on the floor of the van before she walks straight for them. 

“No!” Nux shouts in a panic, but Furiosa grabs his shirtsleeve and keeps him there. 

Capable goes straight to a boy with road burn on the side of his face. “Can I help you with that?” she asks him. The boy nods, speechless. “It’ll hurt, but then it’ll be better,” she says, and she cleans the wound with water and hydrogen peroxide. And it’s another part of the scene, her serving as a field nurse while the Dag hands out treats. 

“Nux,” Furiosa says quietly. “Do they want to be saved?” 

The boy ducks his head and scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I don’t… do you want them to stay too? With us?” 

“No, no not right away like that. But should I even try to help them, I mean.” 

He bites his lip. “It’d be good you tried, I think,” he says. “If you didn’t try for me, I wouldn’t… I mean… I don’t know. How could you help them?” 

“I can talk to some people I know, get them out of Joe’s if they aren’t already. The raid on his compound probably would’ve put them in Child Protective Services, so he might’ve ran away with them to keep them. Get them in a home with food, with clothes and people who don’t try to make them die.” She adjusts her grip on the gun. 

“I don’t know.” He seems nervous. 

“You get to stay either way,” she tells him. “I’m not about to give you up.” 

Nux smiles, and he nods. “We should get in before Joe finds us,” he says. “They might not stay peaceful. It’s not safe.” 

“If that prick comes near me, I’ll shoot his head off,” the Dag says grimly. 

Furiosa can’t bring herself to be anything but proud. “Good.”

Capable comes back for a water bottle. “Hey,” she says. “They say Joe doesn’t have his drugs with them. They’ve all been feeling terrible, and tired. I think we could probably-”

“Miss Wife?” They all turn with a start to see one of the warboys has dared to walk up to them. “Can I have a chocolate?” he says very politely. He has kind of big ears, and his hands are folded. He’s got some of Capable’s gauze around his hand and blood streaked on his chest. 

“Sure,” the Dag answers after a second. She hands it to him, fingers trembling. “What lovely manners you have,” she adds, and her voice cracks. 

Nux and the other boy make awkward eye-contact and nod. And Nux asks a question impulsively, quickly. “Are you going to try to hurt us?” 

The boy seems surprised. “I don’t know,” he says. “Father Joe said he’d shred us if we stopped coming after you. He didn’t tell us what we were supposed to do with you once we caught you. I think he wants the Wives back.” 

“Well he’s not getting that,” Capable says. “I think we’re wondering if _you_ want to go back.”

“Me?” the boy asks. 

“No, all of you. And you.” She shrugs. 

Another warboy is creeping up. He’s small, young, maybe thirteen at the oldest. “Can I have something?” he asks. 

“Of course, little one,” the Dag says, and she gives him a Coke. “Be careful, it’s bubbly when you open it.” She watches him to make sure he’s appropriately careful. And after that, the warboys come closer, all of them. Some of them dare to ask for things, like water or treats or first aid from Capable. Some of them just stand or sit and listen. 

“When Joe gets here, go inside,” Furiosa tells the three of her kids. “Don’t stand and fight. He’ll kill you,” she says to Nux, and adds to the girls, “and he’ll try to take both of you. I can’t protect all of you.” 

“Okay,” Capable nods. 

“Did someone meet you when you went inside the gate?” 

“Yes, a woman with a gun. She said she’d shoot anybody that wasn’t us and you, and I said not to shoot the Dag either.” Capable reaches out for Nux and takes a couple of his fingers. “She said she’d shut the gate once we’re inside, so.” 

“Good.” Furiosa takes one hand off her gun to rub her eyes. She’s got a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she can’t describe. “Splendid?” 

“With Max. She’s okay,” Capable says. 

“Big gate,” Nux says quietly. 

“Yep. You’ll be safe.” Furiosa feels itchy. She wants to take apart her gun and put it back together. She wants to herd every child inside and deal with the blowback later. She wants to shoot Joe in the head, but let the girls have the satisfaction of doing it too. She wants a lot, but she’s a federal agent on the run and her clock is almost out. 

There are murmurs from the warboys, and then one says to Capable. “Help.” And points off towards the road. A boy’s walking towards them, more red than anything else. He looks odd, and then Furiosa realizes he’s missing a hand. 

“Fuck,” Nux says, and takes off running for him. Capable follows close after him. 

She shouldn’t have taught him to swear. She’s thinking that when Joe’s truck pulls up between the kids and her. 

“Dag, inside,” she snaps, and she gets out of the van too. The gate will need to be closed, but she can’t let them lock Nux and Capable out. 

The Dag strides inside the gate with no argument. Furiosa follows her, and stands in the open space. She tries to see what’s happening. She hears several gunshots, and then Capable runs towards her. Nux follows slower, with the boy in his arms, but the truck is right behind him and then Joe starts firing at them. 

“No!” Furiosa shouts. “Nux! All of you, out of the way!” she yells at the warboys, and she shoots back, past Nux at Joe. It doesn’t stop him, and her stomach drops so quickly and so hard. “No, no, no no.” This is the terrible thing she felt coming. 

The gates start swinging shut, and she props it open with herself, bracing her body one one side and her hand against the other. “Hurry!” she calls. 

Capable slips under her arm and inside, and it’s just Nux, trying to outrun the truck.

He could put down the boy, he could put him down and just run but the boy would be run over, without a doubt. So Nux doesn’t put him down, and he keeps running. He reaches her finally, _finally_ , and ducks inside with the boy. 

“We can’t keep him,” Furiosa turns to tell him, but then Joe’s truck slams into the gates. She stumbles back as the doors slam shut, and she’s stuck then, she can’t move because her arm is crushed between the shut doors. 

She hears her heartbeat in her ears. She tries to pull it free, nonsensically, even though half her forearm is definitely, definitely just... 

Nux is talking to her. She cuts him off. “Don’t let Joe take the boys with him. And I’m going to need a bandage.” After that, she blacks out. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

She wakes up slowly. It feels like she’s trying to push her thoughts through an ocean of black jello, up to the surface of consciousness. It hurts. 

There are hands on her, and as she opens her eyes she realizes it’s Max. Max’s hand is on her, linked with hers. Her thoughts are fuzzy, her brain still not quite back. As soon as she can talk, she does. “The kids,” she says. 

“Jesus. You’re already awake?” Max squeezes her hand. 

“The kids,” she repeats. 

“Fine, they’re fine. All got in safe. Nux brought in the kid, they call him Lip.” 

She takes a deep breath, lets it all out. “Joe.”

“Joe is gone. The woman here got him arrested. And all of his boys went to a group home.” 

She doesn’t look down at her arm. She doesn’t want to know what she’ll find. “Nearby?” 

“California.” Max shakes his head, and keeps ahold of her hand. 

“Been out for a day?” 

“Two. And federal agents came for you. But they left when they saw your… you.”

She nods. “Medical leave is just as good as any other,” she says. “I guess.” Max keeps hold of her hand, which is very un-Max-like. It must be real bad. “Splendid,” she remembers to ask then. “Did she have the baby?”

“Just contractions. She’s fine.” He looks away, out the window. “So. This is the green place.” 

“Green place. Capital G,” she says. “Last name. The woman here is my mom.” 

Max looks at her for a long moment, and then he laughs. It’s a quiet sound, kind of unusual. Like he doesn’t do it much. “Green place,” he repeats. “Wow. Alright. So you’re sending the kids to live with your mom, but you weren’t going to stay here?” 

“I thought I’d have work to go back to,” she says. “Or jail. I wasn’t going to hide.” 

He nods. “Do you want me to go get the kids?” he says then. 

“Yes.” 

“Okay.” He gets up and leaves, just like that. 

She looks at her arm while he’s gone. It’s as bad as she thought - her left hand is gone, and half of her forearm. There’s clean white gauze over the stump. It hurts like hell. She wonders who cut the rest off. 

Cheedo is the first into her sick room, the Dag close behind. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” Cheedo says. 

“That old bastard almost got you,” the Dag says. She gives Furiosa’s hand a squeeze. “Glad he didn’t. We like you.” 

“Thanks. Glad you’re safe,” she murmurs. 

Capable and Nux are next, with the Toast shadowing them. She has her gun still. Capable smiles a little, just for a second. Nux looks tearful. “This is my fault,” he whispers, barely looking at her. 

“No, no it’s not. Stop it. Come here,” she orders him, and he obeys. She reaches out for him pulls him closer with a hand over the back of his head, and he comes. He probably expects  her to hit him. She looks him in the eye for a long moment, and then she presses their foreheads together for a moment. “Not your fault. Joe’s fault. You’re okay?” 

He nods, and Capable amends his answer. “He got hit by one of Joe’s bullets. Straight through the muscle though.” 

Nux smiles shyly and nods, looking her in the eyes. ”I’m sorry,” he says quietly. 

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “But don’t ever do anything like that again. Where’s the kid?” 

“I can get him!” Nux offers. She nods, and he leaves at a bit of a run. 

She takes a second to address the girls. “You alright?” she asks. “They taking care of you?” 

“Yes,” Cheedo nods. 

“She’s is taking good care of us,” Toast nods shortly. “Splendid gets her own room. I share with Cheedo and the Dag shares with Capable.” 

Furiosa tries to smile. “Good.” 

Nux comes back with Lip, closely followed by Splendid and Max. Max is holding her hand, helping Splendid walk. “This is Lip,” Nux says. The boy is skinny, huge ears and freckles. They’ve been spending time outside, because he’s already got a tan started. His eyes are grey. He can’t be more than thirteen. He gives her a little wave.

“Hello. How do you feel?” she asks Splendid. 

“Pregnant. Okay. Max has been helping.” Splendid sits in the chair near her bedside, which the others have been saving for her. “This place is wonderful.” 

Max is just gazing at her, gentle, almost relaxed. He’s a fugitive from the law, but he looks like he could stay here, maybe. She lets herself think about him staying for just a second before she returns to business. “We need to talk about some things.”

“What is it?” the Dag asks. She’s petting Cheedo’s hair softly. 

“My name isn’t Furiosa. That was my codename. Agent Furiosa. Had quite a temper in Quantico. Which is a military training school,” she adds for the benefit of the kids. “My name is Charlie Green. The woman helping you is my mom. She was a marine, an elite soldier, and this place is maybe the safest ten acres in the country.” 

She looks around, judging reactions. The kids are all just listening. Max has a smile on her face. “I’m a sniper for the FBI, and when I found you, I was looking for a perch to take a shot at Joe during the raid on the compound. And instead I took you.” 

Nux smiles - everyone does a little. “Do we stay here forever?” Cheedo asks. 

“You can. If you want. But I don’t know if I can stay. I might be facing prison time for kidnapping you and helping Max, here. But I’ll come back if I go.” 

There’s a long and tense silence. “Max Rockatansky,” Max finally says. “That’s my name.” 

“I don’t have another name,” Nux frowns. 

“You don’t need one,” Capable assures him. 

“You can pick one, if you want to,” Furiosa says. “Think about it.” Her arm throbs, hurts so bad her vision gets red around the edges. 

Max must be able to see it. “Alright,” he says. “Everybody out. Give her a hug and let her rest.” He watches them obey with crossed arms, possibly even stern. He doesn’t do stern very well. She doesn’t just hug them, she ends up giving everyone a kiss on the cheek too, after the Dag did it and it felt rude to not return it. Lip flinches a little.

The room clears of everyone but her and Max. He takes the chair again, takes her hand. “Charlie,” he says speculatively. 

“Yep.” 

“Short for something?” 

“Yep.” Her arm hurts badly. Her missing hand is throbbing. “The other boys, where are they?” 

“California.” 

She gives him a deeply annoyed look. “You already said California. I mean where.” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Close to Joe?” Max shakes his head - he doesn’t know. “They shouldn’t be in the same state as him,” she says. “I need to get them moved, I need a phone.” 

Max is quiet for a moment. “No,” he finally says. “You’ll be in more trouble than you are now, if you go kidnap sixty more children.” 

“I won’t kidnap them, I just want to move them to another home. Get them moved.”

“Sure,” he says agreeably. “And you can do that from here.” 

With great reluctance, she stays. It feels like less of a defeat when she’s sitting on a couch with Capable and Nux making the call, in a room full of the wives watching TV for probably the first time in their lives. Nux is still solidly convinced her arm is his fault, flinching every time she moves it. She wants to hug him, but she thinks that might be too weird. So she just makes several phone calls, arguing for the warboys to be put somewhere else. 

In the middle of the afternoon, all of the kids fall asleep. Lip is cuddled in between the Dag and Toast on the floor. Splendid nods off in her chair with Cheedo under her arm. Capable sleeps leaning against the arm of the couch, and Nux is happily sandwiched between her and Furiosa - or Charlie, as she keeps reminding herself. She’s Charlie again. Not on a mission. She’s home. And her family has gotten bigger, as much as she’s been telling herself she could leave it behind here. 

Max comes in after a bit. He looks at everyone there, smiles. “They’re going to be alright,” he says quietly. 

“I think so.”

He nods, and then he leaves. It’s only that evening, when he isn’t back, that she realizes he’s actually left on a more permanent basis. 

She’s trying to open the fridge while balancing on her crutches and failing embarrassingly when her mom comes in. Mom opens it for her, holds it open while she gets an orange and then lets it fall shut. “It’ll take some time,” Mom says. “You’re going to have to get used to needing some help.”

“I’m very aware of that,” she says shortly. 

“You’ve got seven children here who’d do whatever you ask,” Mom says. “If you’re too proud to ask me.” She watches as Furiosa - Charlie - makes her way to the kitchen table and sits down. “And you need to talk to-”

“Damn it, Mom, if you recite the old cliche about needing to talk I’m going to go crazy.” Furiosa gets tired of trying to balance her crutches and lets them fall to the floor instead. “I know I need to talk. It’s obvious. I’ll get to it when… well, when I get to it.” 

“Okay.” Mom doesn’t leave though, she starts cutting up carrots with precision. She’s always been too good with a knife. Charlie never asked about it. 

“What are you doing?” she asks now. “I don’t need that.”

“Didn’t say you did. You really have been out in the cold for too long. Suspicious, angry, cold. You need to talk to your partner to realize you’re safe?” 

“No, I don’t.” Maybe she does. She hasn’t been debriefed yet, and crimes aside, she probably has a lot of information for them. She wonders if she’s still allowed to call in, if she’ll get any kind of answer. 

“You snuck across half the country,” Mom says under her breath while she keeps cutting, stacking the carrot sticks on a plate. “On what was essentially a deep cover mission, with too many guns and children and no backup. Civilian life is hard to get back to without losing a hand, that’s all I’m saying.” She gets celery out of the fridge then too, and cuts it into similar little pieces. 

“I don’t want to get back to civilian life,” Furiosa says. “I want to get back to work.”

“Yeah. That’s the other problem.” 

She starts to peel her orange, because up until this point she honestly forgot she was planning on eating it. She holds it down with her stump and picks at the rind with the other hand. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. It’ll work out somehow,” she says.“What are you doing, really?” 

“Snacks,” Mom says. “Your kids have an uncanny sense of time. Almost as good as you.” She motions at the clock on the wall with her knife. “It’s nine. The first night, I gave the older six a snack at nine. The second night, the redhead asked if I’d get them something else. All the others showed up when I said yes. And today, I’m just assuming.” 

She’s barely finished speaking before Capable pokes her head in. Nux follows, hand in hand with her. He lights up when he sees Charlie sitting there. “Hello,” he says brightly, claiming the seat next to her. “Are you here for a snack?” He takes some carrot sticks from the plate Mom sets down on the table. 

“No,” she says, and then as she finishes peeling her orange she realizes that’s probably confusing. “Well, yes. But I didn’t know you’d be here.” 

Nux nods, satisfied with that answer. He seems satisfied with everything here, with being accepted. The sisters make their way in, one by one, and he smiles at each new one he sees.  “Are you staying, or do you have to go?” he asks. 

“I’ll be staying for a while,” Charlie says, and raises her left arm a bit. “Cuz of this.” 

“Oh right, of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I mean, I guess… I can make you a replacement arm,” he offers. “And hand.” 

She’ll never be able to fire a rifle with as much precision as before. She doubts a new hand, cobbled together out of spare parts by a teenager, will fix that. Anything other than that feels useless. But he means it kindly. He wants to help. “Okay,” she says. “Thanks.” And she leans over to touch his bristly hair with her good hand, reassure him a bit. 

Nux flinches hard, ducking out of her way, and then he comes back. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I just… I’m sorry.” 

Furiosa smiles, but it’s tight. She divides the orange in halves, and offers him one of them. After a second, Nux takes it. He smiles at her again. 

The Dag sits across from her, Capable across from Nux. Cheedo leans against the counter, talking quietly with Mom, Toast behind her. “So,” Capable says, looking into Furiosa’s eyes. “What’s the plan?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“With us. We’re staying here. Is your mother our mother too, now?” 

“No…” That doesn’t feel right.

“So you’re our mother.” 

Charlie hesitates, and looks over at Mom for some kind of sign or support. Mom doesn’t seem old enough to be a grandmother. But she is, almost. She’s well into her sixties. So that means Charlie might be old enough herself. Shit. 

She’s quiet for too long. Nux speaks up. “I said that, I said I thought you were my mother.”

“I don’t think… I don’t know if you need one.” 

“The minors need a guardian,” Mom points out. “And the older ones need someone who can speak for them, on their behalf. Take care of their medical records. Do you think that old man has their birth certificates? Social security cards?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Do you not want to be my mother?” Nux says.

“I think if she’d wanted to be a mother she would’ve gotten a man to breed her before now,” Capable suggests. Charlie feels herself being watched for a reaction, so she doesn’t react.

Mom looks briefly surprised at the language. “I would do it,” she says after a moment. “If you don’t. I’ll sign for the kids.” She smiles at Cheedo a little awkwardly, and Toast smiles back at her. Charlie notes that  - Toast is hard to get approval from. Maybe Mom should be their mom. 

“We should think about it,” Charlie finally says, as a compromise. 

Everybody seems to agree. But Capable reaches across the table for Nux’s hand and rubs it, and Nux doesn’t eat anything else. And Charlie, even the part of her that still feels like Agent Furiosa, is near sick with guilt. 

Mom put the kids all near Charlie’s room. She hears them getting ready for bed, walking back and forth between the bathroom and their rooms, talking quietly amongst themselves. Someone’s loud and is quickly shushed. 

She likes hearing them. She’s known them for barely a week, and already she knows how much she’d miss their absence like she misses her hand. Deeply, fiercely. It’s just being responsible for all of them, really all of them. Forever. It’s daunting. She doesn’t think the decision should be made lightly. But she loves them, so she gets up when the hall is dark and silent, and she walks to the boys’ room. Her legs and sides are still pretty bruised, but crutches hurt more than they help. 

The door isn’t closed, so she walks in after a second. “Nux,” she whispers, and the boy sits up right away. He’s lit by the dim light from the hall. She sees he’s wearing one of her shirts from her teenage years. She wonders if he even knows who the Rolling Stones are. 

“Are you alright?” Nux asks as she sits down on the edge of the bed. 

“I’m fine.” She catches her own tone - definitely snappish. Mom was right, she needs to relax. “I wanted to talk to you, though. To apologize. I didn’t… it’s not that I don’t want to be your mom. I just… I never thought…” 

Nux listens, waits for her to continue. When she doesn’t, he looks up at her. “Why apologize?” 

“Because it made you sad,” she says awkwardly.

“Oh.” They sit there in silence for a long time, and then, very gently, Nux lies his head against her shoulder. “You aren’t going to leave, are you?” 

“No. I’m not.” She puts her left arm around him then, and Nux stays where he is. “I’m not going anywhere. You feel alright?” 

“I feel good,” he nods against her shoulder. “No more shaking. Although this bed is odd. By myself in a bed. Only one other person. I don’t know how I like it.”

She squeezes him closer. “You’ll get used to it.” 

Nux shifts and puts an arm around her back in return. “The other warboys,” he says quietly. “Are you going to help them?” 

“Yeah, I’ll do my best.” She hesitantly rests her cheek on his head. He seems to like it. They stay like that for a bit, resting. “So,” she finally says. “Don’t be sad. Alright?” 

“I’m not,” he murmurs. 

“Alright.” Charlie pulls away to stand up, but Nux stops her, grabbing her arm. She stiffens, because there’s no hand on that arm and it’s odd, and he lets go when he feels that, timid and kind as always. 

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just… thank you? For coming to tell me.” 

“Sure.” She feels like she should touch him again but she can’t think of how to. So she leaves. “Good night.” 

“Good night,” he nods deeply, in the way that’s always looked a little too much like a bow. 

Lying down hurts, so she doesn’t. She sits against the headboard. One hand goes to feel for a gun before she realizes she doesn’t have one, and more than that doesn’t need one. She should be safe here. The kids are safe here. She doesn’t have to worry. She can sleep, in her old bedroom and comfortable bed. 

She doesn’t fall asleep for a couple hours, and when she does it’s fitful. Her arm aches, something in her is uneasy. Her soul, if she had to name it. She started a standard mission six days ago, and now she’s a crippled criminal who has a half dozen young adults that think she’s their mother. It’s odd. But she’s Agent Furiosa, one of the best snipers to ever be in the U.S. military, daughter of a soldier who went on missions she can’t talk about even still. She doesn’t know why she ever thought she’d have a normal family. 

 

Her partner shows up three days later. Lip is the one who comes barreling towards her through the field. “Someone’s here!” he yells. “Someone’s here for you, ma’am!” Nux taught him that quickly. She wishes they’d use her name sometimes. It’d make it easier to be gentle with them. 

She stands up, awkwardly with only one hand but faster than before, and picks up the rifle too. “Who? Do you know?” 

He shakes his head. “Mrs. Green said it was someone from your work.” 

That’s weird. She doesn’t like that, it sounds too impersonal. But it’s because of her that he isn’t calling her Grandma or something. “Okay,” she says, and runs her hand over his fuzzy hair. “Don’t run, you’ll fall into a gopher hole.” 

“I won’t,” he says. “I’m careful.” But he walks at her side anyways, picking a long piece of grass and stripping it of the seeds. “Did your shooting go good?” he asks. 

“Yeah, it did.” Not really. Her aim is totally off, calculations thrown. She’s struggling to hit something at 500 feet. Doesn’t bode well. 

“Nux is working on your hand,” Lip offers next. “It will help, won’t it?” 

“It will help,” she affirms. “And you’re helping him, aren’t you?” 

Lip shrugs modestly. “Maybe, yeah. I hope I’m helping. I dunno. Nux is the best mechanic the Father had, I’m not that good.” 

“Well, you need to learn. He’s got several years on you.” She looks down at him and his little silvery-blonde hair stubble. He’ll look like the Dag, she thinks. A little mismatched just like her, because they didn’t have any clothes on hand for kids as young as him. 

“Yes,” he nods. “I’ll try.” 

“Good. That’s good.” They’re at the barn now, close enough to see who’s in the driveway. She sees the black towncar, and she feels something really close to fear. “Lip, where’s Nux and the sisters?” 

“Nux is in the barn, I think. I don’t know.” 

“Get all the sisters in the barn with him, and stay there.” 

Lip nods with wide eyes. She tries to reassure him too late. “It’s fine, probably nothing. Just go, quick.” He goes. As she continues approaching the car, someone gets out. 

“You’re making trouble again,” he says, taking off his sunglasses. 

“Good thing you know how to deal with trouble,” she says, and then she hugs him when she’s close enough. With only her one good arm, because she’s self-conscious. Her heart is tight in her chest. Even the rifle in her hand doesn’t help. “How are you, Corey?” 

“Well, I didn’t kidnap five girls and one boy and take them on a cross-country road trip, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, fighting a smile. 

“Oh.” 

“So you don’t deny that?” 

“I can’t deny it. I assume you have eyewitnesses.” She jerks her head at the door. “Come in.” Reluctantly, she leaves the gun outside, leaned against the house. 

He holds the door open for her, in a kind of sickeningly polite gesture. She wants to get defensive about not needing it. But she doesn’t say anything. Corey’s a nice guy, but he’s not a particularly empathetic partner. So she stays silent, and she sits with him at the table because he’s carrying paperwork under his arm. 

“What do you need?” she asks, business-like. 

“Well, give me an account of what you did. Bullet points. Just the felonies and misdemeanors.” He clicks his pen and sets it to paper. 

“Alleged kidnapping. They were all willing. Helped a guy steal a car. Misused federal funds from my emergency go bag. Used a black location without permission. Held a police officer at gunpoint and destroyed his car. That’s about it.”

Corey flicks a glare up to her, apparently frustrated by that. “That’s it,” he echoes. “Where are the kids now?” 

“Around. They’re staying here for now, my mom’s taking care of them.” 

“Alright. What happened to your arm?” 

She shifts uncomfortably, catches herself. This isn’t someone asking out of twisted curiosity. Or at least, it’s not only that. She has to answer. “I was holding open the gate for two of the children to come in. They were being pursued by my former target, Father Joe. When they got inside, I didn’t pull free in time and Joe rammed the gate. Arm got caught.” 

Corey shakes his head a little as he writes. “Awful. Infected?” 

“No.” 

“Do plan to take legal action against Joe Walker, alias ‘Father Joe’?”

“Should I?” 

Corey shrugs. “You can. No idea if it would go anywhere.” 

“I’ll call my lawyer.” 

He nods then, and looks up at her. “Well. I’ll put it this way. Given your career, what you’ve done for the country and your skill set, the American government isn’t exactly eager to make it a part of public record that you went on an essentially what amounted to extremely successful rogue black ops mission within the country for five days.” 

Charlie feels her chest open up. She takes her first deep breath since she saw him. “Oh.” 

“Yeah. So they aren’t firing you, and we aren’t reporting most of this. Not publically, at least. You’re being retired for medical reasons, and you’re getting a pension.” 

She keeps breathing. Makes her breath keep going in and out. “Okay.” 

“Now. About the kids.” He flips open a file. “Five girls, a boy. Ages between 14 and 20.” 

“Another boy,” she admits, throat tight. “Maybe thirteen.” 

He makes a note of that. “What are you doing with them?” 

“I’m… my mother or I will be adopting them. Will that be a problem?” 

“Do you have birth certificates?” 

“No. Working on it.” 

“Do you have their consent?” 

She nods after a second, remembering the night with Nux. The kids have given more consent than she has, really. “All of them.” 

“Okay. Then the Bureau is prepared to help that process, in exchange for everyone’s silence. The last thing they want is more people knowing about this.” 

“Really?” 

“For real,” Corey confirms. 

She’s so busy being relieved that she forgets for a second about the thing she needs to really bring up. “The other boys from Joe’s. They’re in a group home in California. I need-”

“No they aren’t,” he says. “No. They were moved… well, are being moved,” he corrects himself, checking some papers. “They’re currently being moved. To a home in Montana.” 

It’s insane to think she could know this, but she has a gut instinct that it’s Max. Somehow, Max got them sent there. It can’t just be a coincident. “Oh,” she says. “Good.” 

“Yeah. You could probably even get visitation, if you wanted.” He shuts his folders and stacks them up. “So I have paperwork to do. You have an extremely detailed report to write and then forget you wrote. Send it to me within the month. Keep me posted on the kids. Alright?” 

She nods, stands and escorts him back out. It’s too good to be true. She should probably make small talk. She doesn’t. 

Mom meets them out by the car. “Corey,” she greets him with a nod. 

“Ma’am.” He puts his sunglasses back on. 

There’s something to that interaction. When he’s driving away, Charlie looks back at Mom. “Did you pull some strings for me?” 

Mom adjusts her shirt. “Almost didn’t have to,” she finally says. 

“Damn it, Mom,” Charlie sighs. 

“You should get the kids out of the barn,” is all the answer she gets. 

Charlie goes to run her hand through her hair with her left hand, has to stop and take a second to process the loss of her hand again. It doesn’t feel like a victory, in the moment, walking to the barn. She feels like she survived, not like she won. She’s not used to needing to feel either, anything other than the thrill of a successful shot. 

She pushes the barn door open to find Toast with a carefully leveled gun at her face. “Hey, it’s me,” Charlie says. “We’re good.” 

“Who was that?” Capable asks. The kids are all pressed inside an old stall, peeking out. Splendid isn’t there. She’s too pregnant to be hiding in barns.

The Dag asks too, “Who’s that man?” 

“My partner, another agent. It’s okay, I promise,” Charlie adds when Toast doesn’t lower the gun. “He’s gone, and he’s not a threat. I just… I wanted to be safe.” 

“What did he have to say?” Capable says then. She has her hand on Nux’s back, clearly protective even though he’s a head taller than her. Charlie likes that. They’re a team. Not a team, though. A family. 

“He said I’m not in trouble. I get to stay. The other warboys will be moved closer to here, we can visit them. And… he said I can adopt you. Or Mom can. Whichever you want. There won’t be any problems with that.” 

“Do you want to?” the Dag asks. “Before now you’ve been curiously quiet on the subject.” 

Charlie tighten her lips. “I want it if you do,” she finally says. “If you’d rather my mother, I understand. She’s more experienced at this kind of thing.” 

“I’ll take you, I think,” the Dag says immediately. “Since you’re willing.” And she kisses Charlie’s cheek. “You’re the most well-meaning person I know.” It’s clear she thinks that’s great praise, so Charlie caves and kisses her back. 

Toast hugs her next - tightly, aggressively, and Charlie knows that she won’t have trouble with her. She understands Toast, and she trusts her. “Mom,” Toast says with half a smile, and Charlie ruffles her hair. 

Capable comes to her, and her face and body language makes it obvious the choice was an easy one for her. She hugs Charlie briefly. No words are needed, and none are said. 

Then Nux. He’s been hanging back, and he only comes when she holds her arm out to him. He hugs her tightly, dropping his head in against her shoulder, and she holds him with both arms. Nux doesn’t care. “I want you,” she says quietly, because she thinks for him, she needs to say it. She’s not at all equipped to be the mother of a young man. But she’s going to do it. 

Cheedo and Lip hang back too. “I think…” Cheedo begins. “I might like it if your mother would take me,” she finally says awkwardly. “I hope you aren’t mad.” 

“I’m not,” Charlie shakes her head. “Not at all.” Nux won’t let go of her. 

“Okay. Lip agrees.” Cheedo looks at the younger boy, and he nods. 

“That’s fine. As long as you’re happy.” Charlie gets it, really. She’s a little surprised any of them picked her besides Nux. “But you’re all safe, no matter what. And we’re staying together.” She pets the back of Nux’s head a couple times. “You’ll be safe, and warm, and fed. No matter what. Alright?” 

Nux kisses her on the cheek and pulls back. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Stop calling me that now. You don’t call your mom ma’am.” 

“Yes, Mom,” he says instead, with a shy smile. 

She returns it. “Get out of the barn,” she says to the half-circle of her children. “Go back to whatever you were doing.” The Dag nods, takes Cheedo and Lip out with her. Charlie half wonders if she’ll be the obedient one in their family of rule-breakers.

“Teach me to shoot like you,” Toast blurts, half a question. 

“Okay,” Charlie says. “Come on.” 

“I was in the barn. I’m working on your hand,” Nux says.

“Good. Okay. That’s… good. I’d like to see it later,” she adds quickly. Moms are supposed to say things like that. 

Nux brightens. “Yeah, okay. I mean it’s not done. But okay.” 

“Cool.”

As Toast and her leave, she can hear Capable start to tease him. “You’ve had her all of three minutes and you’re already a mama’s boy?” And Charlie feels warm. Happy warmth in her gut that isn’t from the sun beating down or the heat of the gun in her hand. 

“So I’m not too young to learn?” Toast says as they walk through the field. 

“Mom taught me when I was twelve, so no. Or I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise.” Charlie’s overly aware of how her arm moves without its hand.

“I’m at least okay,” Toast claims. 

“Haven’t seen you shoot. But you handle a gun well enough, and you want to learn. That’s most of what it takes.” She needs a cool head and a good eye, she needs to stop her heart to take a shot, and she needs to be in total harmony with their surroundings to make the shot. But there’s no use overwhelming her. 

“That can’t be all I need,” Toast says flatly. 

“Well,” Charlie says. “It’s a good place to start.” 

She walks her through loading, every step with the proper safety precautions. Then, she lies down with her on the grass and teaches her about how to make sure the rifle is steady. Then sighting, which is more difficult. She finds she’s having trouble putting it into words. “You learn,” she finally says. “You’ll learn to feel the wind and the temperature and change your aim based on all that. In general, aim high if you’re on level ground. Practice.” 

Toast nods, sets her eye to the sight and exhales. She holds the gun just right, firm and close. She breathes out again, and that all-consuming stillness pervades her body, the trademark of a real sniper. It’s a promising sign. She squeezes the trigger, just like she should. 

Charlie squints at the target. “Nope,” she says. “You missed it.” 

“Went wide,” Toast says, annoyed. “How did the wind take it so wide?” 

“Long distances mean a lot of room for the wind to play. Try again. Be still and then wait for the wind to be still. And you have to account for the wind a little bit. It’s blowing to the right, so you need to aim left.” 

“Up and to the left,” the girl repeats under her breath, sighting the target again. “How far to the left?” 

“As far as you want. Then wait for the wind to match how far left you’ve chosen.” 

Toast is silent. She takes another shot, then shakes her head. “Hold on. I’ll get it next time.” And she does, through either skill or dumb luck. The bottle shatters. 

Charlie smiles at her. “Nice shot. Made it at five hundred feet. Do a lot of shooting before?” 

“No,” Toast shakes her head. “But we had darts in our rooms. Not the same thing, but. I learned to aim pretty well.” 

“And you’re young,” Charlie says. “Good age to learn. Brain makes connections it can’t when you’re older. All the best shooters I know started young. Sit up, hands off the gun.” After Toast obeys, she goes and sets up another bottle. They don’t recycle here. They shoot the bottles. 

When she’s back in earshot of Toast, the girl blurts something else out. “I want to shoot Joe. I want to kill him.” 

Charlie doesn’t say anything until she’s closer, sitting next to Toast on the ground. “You’d go to jail,” she says. Except she doesn’t think she would. She might get away with it. 

“That’s fine. I’ve been in jail my entire life.” 

She tries a different tactic. “It’s harder than you think, taking someone else’s life.” At least the first time. “I think it’d probably be best if you could put him behind you.” 

“He raped me and every one of my sisters every day to make us bear him children. If we didn’t get pregnant, he’d get rid of us.” She picks at the grass at her side. “And if we had a son, it’d be raised by him to be his helper. And if we had a daughter, I was told he’d… she’d grow up with us. For him when she got old enough. So. It’s pretty safe to say he won’t be anywhere behind me for a while.” 

Charlie accidentally makes eye contact with her. Toast has fire in her eyes, undeniable and fierce. “Okay,” Charlie says after a moment. “It’ll take a while to train for that, though. Not just the shooting, but how to get away after.” 

“I’ll learn,” Toast nods. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.” 

Charlie nods with a tight smile that’s not really a smile. “First you have to master this distance,” she says. “This is my gun. You can use it whenever you want, but you can’t shoot if any of the other kids are back in these woods. Ever. Even if you think you know where they are. Never. And once you’ve made a hundred shots in a row, across a few different days, then we can move you further back.” 

Toast nods back. “Where are more rounds?” 

“In my room. And here.” Charlie pulls a box of them out of her pocket. 

“Will you stay with me today?” Toast asks, a little gruff. 

“Yeah, sure. Of course.” 

So Charlie’s first act as a mother is to sit in a field with her daughter for several hours and teach her to shoot. She thinks she can do this, do some good for them. She hopes she can.

 

 

“Um, Mom?” Nux is in the doorway of her bedroom. Personal space is very important to the kids, she’s noticed. They all hesitate before entering a room. 

“Yeah, what is it.”

He ducks his head and enters. He has a bit of leather and metal in his hands. “Can I… I’d like to fit this for your arm. Do you think…” 

“Of course, yes,” she says. It’s been more than two weeks that they’ve been here, and Nux spends a good part of every day in the barn working on it. She wants to see what he has. 

“This is just part of it,” he says preemptively, and then he shows her what he has. Some bits of leather and buckles that look like old belts attached to a shoulder pad that looks suspiciously like repurposed body armor. There’s a smaller cuff too, for her arm, and a leather glove for her stump to fit into. “Can you put this on?” he asks. 

“Yeah.” She pulls the contraption on with her good hand. The belts all go around her torso, under her breasts, and the buckles are towards the right, so she can easily tighten and buckle them. There’s another that crosses her chest to the shoulder pad, to hold it on securely. Her stump fits into the leather pocket well, the cuff snaps onto her arm well. It all fits. “Did you measure me in my sleep?” she asks, half-joking. 

“No. I just guessed.” He examines the fit carefully, touching the straps and the metal fastenings but not her. He doesn’t touch any part of her. “Is it comfortable?” 

“Yeah.” She rolls her shoulder quickly stretches her arm out and twists it a couple times. The leather pulls taut but never uncomfortably so, and it stays secure. It feels nice, to have something wrapped around her the way it is. Like a bulletproof vest, almost. “Very comfortable. Good work.” 

“This isn’t the work yet,” he says, looking at her in surprise. “This was just the fit.” 

“Oh, okay. I’ve never made anything like this before, I wouldn’t know.” She moves her arm again a couple times. It really does fit well. “What’s the real work?” 

“The engineering of it,” he says. “Making the metal parts work, so you can hold things.” 

“I see. I’m sure you’ll do a great job,” she says. 

He nods several times. “Thank you, yeah. I just… I also came to ask you for, um.” 

“Come here,” she says after a second. “C’mon.” Nux obediently comes and kneels next to her on the bed, sitting back on his feet. He has his head down again. His hair is short and dark. “What do you need?” 

“Parts,” he says, and then carefully gauges her expression. “Can you… do you want to help me? I don’t know how to get them.” 

She smiles and taps his knee. “Go ask my mom for her laptop.” 

“Okay.” Nux jumps up to obey. He comes back a few minutes later with the laptop in his hands. “What is it?” he asks. 

“Do you know what a computer is?” She takes it from him, and opens it in her lap. 

“No.” He’s itching with curiosity, and crawls up the bed to sit next to her after just a second. “Is it electric?” he asks, watching her turn it on. 

“Yeah, exactly. It’s electric, and it’s connected to all the other computers in the world. So.” She opens up Chrome and goes to Ebay. Another shitty reminder that she only has one hand - typing is hard. “You know the names of the parts you need?” 

He nods, and looks amazed when she hands the laptop to him. “Type in the name of something you need,” she says. He does, picking out the letters carefully. Some kind of electrode. A bunch of results come up. “See? So those are the prices, and we can buy them. Whatever you need, someone’s probably selling it.” 

“I don’t have any money, though,” he says softly. 

“I’ll pay for it,” she tells him. “It’s my arm. Get whatever you need, okay?” 

“Not a lot,” he says. “I can use pieces from other things, scraps.” 

She puts her arm around him, wishing she had a hand to pull him with. He comes anyways, and she hugs him close by the neck for a moment. “Whatever you need,” she repeats. 

“Thank you.” 

“Thank _you_. You’re spending a lot of time on this.” 

“I want it to be good,” he mumbles. He stays against her even after she’s let him go. “A present for you. For being so nice.” 

“Don’t need presents to be nice to you.” 

“I know. But. Thank you. Mom.” He says the last word with a smile in his voice, head ducked to hide it. 

She hugs him. She wishes she had both hands, to hold him tighter. And she kisses his temple. “Don’t spend all your time on this,” she murmurs. “I’m okay. Do what you want.” 

“I want this,” he says, and he kisses her temple back, quickly. Charlie rolls her eyes at that, nudges his side. 

“Order your parts,” she says. “I’ll leave this on for a while and see how it feels.” 

Nux obeys. Charlie goes back to writing the first draft of her report. At least she can still write well enough. She’s thinking about running it by some of the girls for accuracy. She’d ask Max, but he’s still gone. 

“Hey, Charlie.” Splendid pauses in the doorway, smiles at Nux. She elected to be adopted by Charlie’s mom, which Charlie understands. They’re too close in age. 

“Hey. How’s the baby feel?” 

“Good. He wants out.”

Charlie nods. “Haven’t seen you much.”

“Enjoying the quiet,” Splendid says, choosing her words carefully. “Feeling peaceful. Ready to be a mother. I think.” 

“Good. You’ll be great.” 

Splendid smiles. “Goodnight,” she says, and walks away. 

“Many mothers here,” Nux observes, half to himself. “No fathers.” 

“Fathers tend to be trouble.” 

“Where’s yours? Don’t you have a father?” 

Charlie grits her teeth a bit, and somehow Nux can feel even that. He looks over to her, ready to apologize. “Yes, I have one,” she says. “He… didn’t support my mom’s career choices. Didn’t like her having more kills than him. So she divorced him. Ended the marriage,” she clarifies for him. “Kicked him out.” 

“Oh.” She can feel his eyes on her for a bit, reading her to make sure she doesn’t hold any tension still. She knows his intentions better than her own sometimes, because he’s just so purely honest. Not truthful always, but his intentions and desires are always the same. He wants to be loved, to make people happy. He wanted Joe’s Valhalla with the same whole-hearted intensity.

She stops that tangent of thought, makes sure nothing on her face is angry as she keeps writing. Nux relaxes, and he resumes focus on the computer. “Capable would kick me out if I was not supportive,” he muses. “Yes.” 

“I wouldn’t let her. And you’re always supportive of her.” 

Nux is apparently satisfied by this. “I am. She should do whatever she wants. Nobody gets to tell her what that is. I didn’t know that before.” 

He didn’t have a chance to know it before. She wishes she had words to tell him that it’s not his fault in a way that he’d be able to understand it. “Where is Capable?” she asks instead. 

“She’s having a snack downstairs.”

“You want something to eat?” Charlie frowns. 

Nux wavers for a moment. “No,” he decides. “I want to stay here with you.” 

She’s contemplating how to go get him something to eat without him being embarrassed when Capable comes in the room. She’s carrying a plate and a Coke. “Can I sit down?” she asks Charlie. 

“Yeah, course.” 

Capable sits cross-legged across from Nux at the foot of the bed. “For you,” she says with a smile, then asks Charlie, “What do we call your mom?” 

“Dunno.” She thinks about it for several moments. She doesn’t think her mom would like being a grandma, not yet. “Call her whatever you want,” she says.

“Okay,” Capable nods, satisfied. She takes a pizza roll from Nux’s plate and nibbles on it. “What’re you doing with that box?” she asks him. 

“Buying things,” he says excitedly. “I’m buying parts for her arm.” 

“Cool. Can I watch?” Nux nods, and Capable moves up next to him then, leaning her head on his shoulder and wrapping her arm around his. And Charlie is so proud of them, both of them, for trusting someone enough to love them the way they love each other. 

The Dag stops in next, which Charlie isn’t surprised by, honestly. The kids are gravitating towards her tonight. That’s alright. “I think I need you tonight, Momma,” she says to Charlie. She’s got a strange look on her face that’s between determination and melancholy. 

Charlie sets aside her notebook and hesitantly holds out her arm for the girl. The Dag comes to her and nestles in against her free side. It takes a few long seconds before Charlie can ask her what she knows she needs to. “Is something wrong?” 

“Well, depends on what you mean by wrong, I suppose.” The Dag sighs deeply. 

Charlie combs lightly through her hair. Her mom used to do that, when she had longer hair. It works just like it used to work on her. “I think… I think I’m pregnant,” the Dag murmurs. 

“Okay,” Charlie says after a moment. “You want to keep it?” 

“The baby?” 

“Yes.” 

“How do I not keep it?” 

Of course Joe never let them know about abortions. Charlie feels sick to her stomach. “They can get rid of it before it gets big,” she says. “If you’re not ready to have a baby.” 

“Hmm.” The Dag is silent for a while. “Well. How long do I have to decide?” 

“You have a while. Months, if it just happened.” 

“I think it did.” She presses her face closer to Charlie. “Does it make me a terrible person, to not want his child, though?” she asks. “Splendid kept it.” 

“Splendid didn’t have a choice, though.” 

“Hmm.” 

Capable speaks up from her spot against Nux’s side. “I think you should do whatever makes you happy,” she says quietly. “Really.” 

“Thank you.” 

The room falls quiet for a while, and Charlie ends up watching Nux pick letters out on the keyboard and choose parts. Toast comes in then, with Charlie’s rifle. She sits on the floor and starts practicing, assembling and disassembling it as fast as she can. The movements are unfamiliar to her still, but she’s getting better. 

Three daughters and a son. It’s terrifying. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like enough. She has room for a lot more, she thinks. She just might need a bigger bed. 

“It’s late,” she finally says. “You should get sleep.”  

“Can we stay here?” Nux asks. “I don’t like my room, it’s lonely.” 

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Any of you who want to stay can. Get your pillows and blankets and make up a bed on the floor.” 

Nux kisses Capable’s cheek. “You stay, I’ll get the pillows,” he says. Charlie can’t see her response, just Nux shutting the computer and dashing out of the room. He’s so gangly and tall, his movements so loose. He honestly looks happy. Capable looks happy too, watching him go. 

“Hey,” Charlie says. “Do you all feel comfortable with him here?” 

“Sure,” Toast shrugs. “He’s not a threat.” 

“What do you mean?” the Dag asks. “Comfortable. Why wouldn’t we be comfortable with it?” 

“Because he used to help Joe. Believed in him.” 

“Oh.” 

“It wasn’t him,” Capable says. “It was Joe. And he hurt them, all the boys, to get them to do whatever he wanted. They were trapped too. So it’s completely different. For me.” 

“Yeah,” Toast nods. “Same for me.” 

“I don’t know,” the Dag says. “I think part of it has to do with Nux. He’s a good boy. He’s kind. And he’s gentle, and respectful. So.” 

Nux comes back in while she’s talking. “What?” he says, looking cheerful as ever. 

“Nothing, babe,” Capable says after a second. “We’re just talking about how we feel good. And how we like having you around,” she adds with a bit of a smile. She’s a troublemaker, and most concerningly Charlie likes that. 

Nux blushes a deep pink. “What?” he says. “Why?” 

“Because you’re the best little revhead this side of the equator,” the Dag says affectionately. She pushes herself up to sit and wipes her eyes. “And you’re so sweet.” 

Toast looks up from her gun to give Nux a fierce smile of her own. “You’re good,” she says. “Only man I trust right about now.” 

Nux just smiles at Charlie. “Stop,” he says. “I’m… stop, I’m just… sorry,” he says shyly, mostly because he doesn’t seem to know what else to say. 

Capable motions him up onto the bed and hugs him. Nux hangs onto her tightly, burying his face in her shoulder. She kisses the side of his head. “You’re not sorry,” she says. “Don’t be sorry.” 

“I’m not,” Nux murmurs. “I’m… happy. I’m happy. I like you, I’m happy.” He lets go of her to hug Charlie next. “I like you,” he says again, quietly in her ear. 

“Same,” she says awkwardly. 

“Is it still fitting well?” he asks, pulling back. 

“Yeah, fits great.” She forgot she had it on. Now she unbuckles it and puts it on the nightstand, or mostly on the nightstand. It’s kind of unwieldy. She hugs him against her side again when her arm is free. “So one of you can sleep in the bed with me,” she says. 

“The Dag,” Toast says immediately. 

Capable and Nux nod, and the Dag looks at all of them. “Thank you,” she says after a second, her voice tight. “I appreciate that.”

“Of course, sister,” Capable says. “Do you want one of us to be on your other side?” 

The Dag nods after a second. “Would you?” 

“Sure.” Capable says. She puts her hand over Nux’s head and scratches through his hair. “I guess Toast will have to cuddle with you tonight,” she tells him. 

He nuzzles into her hand. “Nah, I’m fine,” he says. “I don’t need that.” But he doesn’t protest the attention while Capable is giving it to him. 

Charlie should be able to do that without feeling weird. She needs to work on that. That’s her first job as a mom, she thinks. Learning how to show her kids love. If she had a hand on the arm closest to him, she’d rub his back now. 

Like he can hear her thoughts, Nux turns to look at her. He asks, “Can I?” and gets her permission before scooting back to sit pressed against her. He loves her, he sets his head against her shoulder and snuggles closer when she puts her arm around him. “Mom,” he says quietly, just an acknowledgement. 

He snuggles in, and for all he says about not needing comfort he’s definitely seeking it out right now. The girls leave for a bit, to get ready for bed, and she asks him then, “You alright?” 

“Happy,” he says. “So much it hurts my chest. Good.” 

“Okay. You tell me if it’s not good.”

“Okay.” 

So maybe they all end up in bed that night, the Dag curled against Charlie’s chest, between her and Capable who has Nux holding her so tightly. Only Toast opts for the floor, lying so close to Charlie’s side of the bed she’s almost under it. Charlie finds her like that when she wakes up, finds all of them curled together. Her kids. 

She wakes up Toast when she gets up on accident. “Sorry,” she murmurs, but the girl shakes her head. 

“It’s okay. I’m up.” Toast pushes the gun from under her arm to under the bed and gets up too. Charlie goes to the bathroom, and when she comes out Toast is in the hallway waiting. “Mama and Splendid are gone,” she says. 

Charlie frowns. She goes downstairs on a hunch, Toast at her heels, and just like she thought there’d be, there’s a note for her on the kitchen table. _Splendid’s in labor. Will call in if anything goes wrong. If not, stay put and don’t worry._

“Runs in the family, doesn’t it,” Toast says, reading over her shoulder. 

“What does?” 

Toast shrugs. “You aren’t… you’re strong. Both of you.” 

“Yeah,” Charlie says after a second. “I guess we are. So are you, though, all the girls.” 

“Well. I guess, We did kind of have to be.” Toast watches her open the fridge. “What are you doing?” 

“Making you guys breakfast. What do you want?” 

“Anything. Let me help.” 

Charlie barely knows her way around a fry pan herself, but she and Toast get food cooking. The other kids make their way in, even Cheedo and Lip, and it’s a morning so cliched she’s sure she’s seen it in a storybook somewhere. Six kids around the table and a mom. But the mom probably wasn’t missing an arm or sporting a buzz cut. 

When the alarm goes off, it takes several seconds to realize what it means. When she does, all the kids can tell. “Mom?” Capable says, standing up. Nux stands with her. 

“Toast, get the rifle from under my bed and load it. Then get out on the hide site on the roof, lie down and be ready to take a shot on my mark.” The girl runs out of the room. Charlie reaches over the fridge and gets the black case. The combination is the same, thank God, and she pulls out the pair of pistols with relief. She tucks one in her waistband of her sweatpants, sticks the ammo in her pockets, and holds the other one out to Capable and Nux. 

After a second, Capable takes it. “Okay?” she says to Nux. 

“Yeah, that’sfine… Mom, what’s happening?” he asks, turning to her. 

“Motion detector. Someone’s on the grounds,” she says. “I want all of you to stay behind me.” 

“Maybe it’s your mom.” 

“She would’ve turned off the alarms. It’ll be okay,” she adds when she sees how scared they look. “It’s okay, I won’t let anything hurt you.” She gets scant response in the form of a few nods, which she figures is the best she’ll get. So she goes out to see who’s coming. 

“Let me see who’s there and get the gate,” Nux says, following her. “Stay away from it. What happened last time…” 

She hesitates, but the visceral memory of the crunch her arm made makes the decision for her. “Okay,” she says. “Don’t open the gate for anyone, unless it’s my mother.” 

“Okay.” 

She stands in the front door, gun in her hand. The girls stay inside, looking out the window and peeking out around the doorframe. Again, the seconds where Nux is out of sight are terrifying. But even more terrifying is the sound of the gate opening. “Nux!” she shouts. She thought she could trust him. 

“Fuck,” Capable says quietly. Charlie hears her checking her magazine. 

An SUV drives up, and Capable only has to shout “Toast!” before a shot cracks the windshield. The car squeaks to a halt, and Charlie points her gun at the driver for all of six seconds while he’s getting out before she recognizes him. She almost shoots him anyways. 

“Don’t shoot,” Max calls to her, and he’s smiling. 

“Where the hell have you been?” she demands, walking out to meet him at the front of the car. Another car pulls up behind his, which spooks her. 

“It’s alright,” Max says. “They’re only here for as long as you want them.” 

“Who’s…” she begins, but then she sees the buzzed heads of the boys in the car with him, their pale appearance, the dark cargo pants they’re wearing, and it all clicks. “You.” 

“Yes,” he says cheerfully. “They’re in a home two hours away, and they wanted to visit. Well, eleven of them did. Or only eleven got in before we left.” 

“Eleven,” she repeats. 

“Day trip.” 

“Officially?” 

Max shrugs. 

Charlie looks up at the roof hide site and waves at Toast. “It’s okay,” she says. “Come down.” She tucks her gun away and then looks away from Max to the new kids. Apparently the shot into the windshield scared them; they don’t get out of the car until Max tells them to. 

The boys are quiet. They’re wearing clothes bought from a variety of tourist traps. The one getting out of the passenger side is in a shirt advertising some diner in Helena. “Hi,” Charlie says. “What’s your name?” 

“Rem.” 

“Hey, Rem,” Capable says, walking towards him. They recognize each other, and she hugs him. Rem flinches hard, and Charlie remembers the time not so long ago when Nux flinched like that too. These boys are all hurt. One of them has metal staples through his cheek. In fact, that’s the one who Nux runs to greet, jumping on him. Lip runs up to them too, his face bright and happier than she’s ever seen it. She’s irrationally worried for their safety, even though they’re warboys too. 

The girls are coming outside now. Capable knows a couple of them, but the others stand back a little until she and Nux pull boys over to meet them. Furiosa - or Charlie still, just watches. “What are they like?” she asks. 

“They’re quiet,” he says. “Group home isn’t anything special. They’re off the drugs, but they aren’t good yet. Not by a long shot.” 

“I can’t fix that,” she tells him. 

He nods, smiles. “Sure you can’t. That’s how you fixed all the other kids.”

“I didn’t fix them either. How long are you staying here?” 

“Depends.”

Charlie forgot how annoyed she was by him sometimes, but she’s glad he’s here. The girls are happy, so she’s happy as well. She watches with crossed arms while the kids mingle. 

Capable comes up to them after a bit. “How are you?” she asks Max. 

“Fine,” he says, seemingly surprised by the question. “Just fine. How are you girls?” 

“Good. Splendid’s having her baby right now.” Capable smiles a bit at the shock on his face and adds, “Mom’s mom is with her. It’s fine.” 

“Okay,” he says. “Good. What about the rest of you?” 

“Good. Where are the rest of the boys? What are they doing?” 

“They’re… at a group home.” Max glances at Charlie. “A place where kids without parents go. Temporarily, though. They said to talk to you about that.” 

“We’ll talk later,” Charlie says. “Have you guys eaten?” 

“Not since the sun rose.” 

“Come inside, then,” she says after a second. “Bring the boys. We can find them something. You too, if you’re lucky.” 

Max likes her. She knows it for a fact, even though he acts gruff. Herding children inside her mother’s house for food feels like some kind of natural extension of them. 

The sisters take control of the stove, with the dozen warboys sitting and standing on just about every surface in the kitchen. They revere the wives. They don’t touch them first, and they gaze at them in awe every second they’re near them. And Toast is carrying the rifle slung over her shoulder, Capable still has hers and Charlie has hers tucked in her waistband, so she decides they’re safe. 

Nux makes his way to her through the crowd to her. She smiles at him, and Nux grins back. “Mom, this is my… my friend? This is Slit,” he says, and he stands next to her so close, doesn’t flinch. “He was my bunkmate.” 

“Slit,” Charlie repeats. “Okay.” _Nice to meet you_ , she remembers to say too late. “What happened to your face,” is what ends up coming out instead. 

Slit gives her a bit of a wicked grin. “Shredded.” 

“Him too?” Charlie asks Nux. 

“Yeah, well. Yeah. We did everything together, so.” Nux doesn’t clarify further. He links his arms with hers and crowds even closer into her space. Charlie’s the one trying not to flinch away now. “How long do they get to stay?” he asks. 

“I don’t know. I have to talk to Max, I think he stole them. Did he steal you?” she asks Slit. 

The boy shrugs, adjusts his shirt that he’s a little uncomfortable in. “Maybe. It’s way better out of there anyways. No rules. And no quiet hours.” 

“Did he have permission, or did you all jump in the car and speed away?” 

“Oh, we sped away,” Slit says with another smile that looks dangerous at first glance. But Charlie’s got experience reading people, and she knows the difference between a psychopath and a normal person acting like one. This boy’s cold, but not insane. 

“Okay,” she says. “Then we can figure out how long they can stay. Maybe some of them - you - can stay longer if they want to. Okay?” She rubs Nux’s back a bit, and he nods. 

“Can I… what are we doing today?” he asks. 

“Whatever you want,” she says. “Stay away from the fence, don’t hurt each other.” 

“I can show you the field,” Nux says to his friend. “And the forest. It’s so big, and open. We can all explore, it’s so big.” 

“Whatever, you’re driving,” Slit shrugs. 

Neither of them are actually driving, so Charlie figures it’s some kind of code. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll talk to Max.” 

“Thanks. Mom,” Nux adds. 

“You’re the lamest show-off on the road,” Slit mutters, and turns to push his way to the stove. He’s hungry. All the boys are hungry, eating basically everything the girls let them the moment it’s ready. 

Charlie talks to Max after Nux has led the kids back to the woods for exploring. She’s sitting on the roof, facing the forest in case anything happens. He climbs out to join her. He’s surprisingly clumsy when he’s not driving or firing a gun or protecting the kids. Doesn’t know what to do with himself. But then, she doesn’t either. 

They make eye contact, awkwardly grunt a bit, and then they sit in silence together for several minutes. She can hear some distant yelling, but she isn’t worried because she can also hear laughing.

“So you stole them,” she eventually says. “Right?” 

“They were willing,” he says. 

“Turns out that still counts.” 

Max snorts. “Well.” 

“Was the group home really that bad?” she asks, even though she’s not sure she wants to know. 

“It was fine,” Max says. “Average, probably. But you put twenty kids who have personal space and aggression issues in an house, one bedroom, and it’s not exactly going to go very well. They were trying, but.”

“Only twenty of them?”

“No, twenty in each home. Spread out.” 

“So they aren’t even together?” 

Max shakes his head. “No. There’s sixty of them, though. It’d be hard to put them anywhere together. Orphanage maybe.” 

“Yeah.” He’s right. “Are they scared, or. What are they like, are they okay?” she asks. She can’t help herself. She cares about all of these kids, more than she knows how to say or explain.

“They’re quiet,” Max says. “Trying to figure out who to obey now. Jumpy. But they’re obedient, and they’re always keeping watch. They fall in line quick.” 

“I’m not asking you what kinda soldiers they are.” 

Max bites his lip and stays silent for a while. Finally, he says, “They light up if you tell them they did a good job. They always think you’re about to hit them, but they don’t ever fight back.”

“They won’t touch the sisters, will they?” 

“No.” 

“Okay.” 

Max turns to look at her properly then, for the first time since he came out here. “You gonna let them stay the night? Longer?” 

“The night,” she says. “If all goes well. I don’t know about more than that. I have to talk to my mom about it. We don’t have a lot of room.” 

“They’ll sleep outside on the floor if you’re good to them.” 

She nods, looks back at the distant trees. “Let’s see how it goes.” 

 


	4. Chapter 4

She’s right to worry, of course. They’re warboys. Cheedo comes running towards the house. “Mom!” she yells as soon as she’s close enough. “He got hurt, he’s hurt!”

“Who?” Charlie calls back, standing up. 

“One of the boys.” 

Quick as she can, she ducks inside and heads downstairs and outside with Max on her heels. She only pauses to grab the first aid kit, and Max jogs ahead, following Cheedo to the kid. Even running is unbalanced for her, she discovers, and she hates it. 

There’s a boy on the ground and a crowd around him under a really big tree, so it’s pretty clear what happened. All the boys scatter when she and Max get there, so noticeably staying out of arms’ reach that Charlie almost stumbles.

Nux and Capable are knelt next to the kid. He’s one of the younger ones, fifteen or so, and his shoulder is already bruised and red. “Dislocated,” Nux says. “And he’s bleeding, cut his arm.” 

“Oh, that’s easy,” Max says immediately. “It’s alright. We’ll fix that in a second. I’m going to hold you still, alright? What’s your name?” 

“Cor.” 

“Alright, Cor. We aren’t gonna hurt you.” Max kneels over him to hold him firmly with one hand over his collarbone and the other around his side. Charlie kneels on the other side of the kid and goes to take his arm but then she realizes she doesn’t have both hands. 

Nux is at her side before she’s finished the thought. “Can I help?” he asks. 

“Yeah, you’ve done this before?” 

He nods. “On three?” he says to Max, and Max nods and counts. 

“One, two-” 

On two, Max holds Cor down and Nux pushes his arm back in. The kid doesn’t scream. And after that, Max gives Cor a little pat on the chest before helping him sit up. “Good,” he says. “Let Charlie see your arm.” 

Cor turns to her. He has dark brown eyes, big in his face. “What happened?” Charlie asks. She looks over to Capable, who understands her without speaking and comes to help. It’s unintuitively hard to tape gauze over a cut with only one arm. Capable can handle it though. 

“We were just playing,” he says immediately. “We were climbing the tree things and I slipped and Slit caught me but then I fell anyways.” 

“Is anything broken?” 

“No.” He shakes his head.

“Dizzy?” 

“I’m fine.” She gives him a look, and Cor sheepishly adds, “Yeah.” 

“Okay. Taste metal? Headache? Double vision?” He shakes his head at each thing. 

Charlie gently pulls his head closer to take a look, make sure there’s no blood. He’s got a pretty big bruise on the back of his head, but he’s okay. “Alright,” she says. “Come back to the house and sit down for a while.” 

For some reason, that scares him. His eyes widen, and he pulls away a little but he doesn’t object. Nux speaks up before Charlie has too much time to worry. “I’ll come with you,” he assures Cor. “I’ll come, and Capable and we can watch TV. I bet Slit would even-” 

Speak of the devil. Charlie hears yelling and looks up to see Max separating Slit and the Dag. The Dag is spitting and attempting to claw at the boy, and Slit is backing away from her but also vibrating with adrenaline, bouncing on the balls of his feet. She gets the sense that if anyone other than one of the precious wives was trying to hit him, he’d fight back viciously. She also thinks that wouldn’t go well, given how close Toast is watching the situation from a few feet away.

“You’re a bloody idiot,” the Dag snaps. “You think it’s fun to scare people, yeah? You think that’s alright here? I’ll shred _you_ , stupid idiot, you almost broke the kid’s arm.” 

“Dag,” Charlie says sharply, loudly, pretends that she doesn’t notice how that gets a flinch from most of the people here. 

The Dag stops trying to murder the boy and turns to Charlie. “Mom,” she says in exasperation, and stomps her foot a little bit. “He dropped Cor on purpose, the bastard.” 

Charlie is not about to defuse this bomb in a group setting with almost twenty people here. “Okay,” she says. “Is everybody else okay?” She looks around at everyone, paying particular attention to Toast, who she knows will tell her the truth. Everybody nods. “Do you want to get back to whatever you were doing?” More hesitant nods, mostly from the girls and Lip. “Okay. Slit, Dag, Nux, Capable, and Cor. You all come back with us. Okay?” 

Toast answers for everyone. “Okay. When’s dinner?” 

Apparently they’re skipping lunch. “Six, probably. Come back to the house, we’ll make something,” she says. 

Toast approves, and Charlie ushers the five people she mentioned in front of her back towards the house. She can feel that the boys won’t relax until this situation is fixed somehow, and she wants them to have a nice day. Except she doesn’t know what she’s going to say to the kids yet. 

Max walks next to her, unreadable as he sometimes gets but not upset. Capable is walking arm-in-arm with the Dag in front of them, taking the lead. Nux and Cor are behind them, with Nux keeping a watch on the younger one. Slit walks between them and Charlie, apparently in disgrace. This is going to be interesting.

She gets an ice pack for Cor, wraps it in a towel and gives it to him - and then has to explain what to do with it, unexpectedly. He lies down on a couch by the TV with it, and everybody else sits out on the porch. Max takes the only chair, so Charlie has to sit down on the couch. Capable and the Dag sit on the couch as well, to her right. Nux sits against the other couch on the floor, and after a second, Slit joins him. 

“So what happened?” Charlie asks to start. 

“I told you, Momma, he dropped Cor on purpose,” the Dag begins angrily. 

This situation needs to be de-escalated. Charlie hasn’t the slightest idea how to do that. Almost accidentally, she looks to Max. She wishes she were more surprised when he speaks up for her. “Maybe we shouldn’t get so loud,” he says gently. 

“Okay,” the Dag says after a second. “Sorry.” She puts her hand on Charlie’s arm, and she repeats it. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset, Momma, he could’ve killed him and he was doing it for fun.” 

Charlie asks Nux, “What happened?” 

Nux frowns, and he looks at Slit and then the girls. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think he was trying to kill him, or hurt him. It was just fun.” 

Capable purses her lips but doesn’t say anything. Charlie asks Slit himself. “Did you drop him on purpose, did you mean to hurt him?” 

Slit gets shifty. He looks at Nux, and he hunches his shoulders a little. “I was just having fun with it,” he says. “Wasn’t supposed to get hurt.” 

“Really,” Max says, deadpan. 

“Really,” Slit says, but he’s not too convincing. 

“Mom, don’t throw him out,” Nux says. “Please don’t. It was an accident, it won’t happen again.” 

“Okay,” Charlie says after a second. “But it _can’t_ happen again.” 

“Momma,” the Dag says. “This needs to be a safe place. We can’t have people hurting people, even if it is on accident.” 

“But this isn’t his fault this time,” Capable speaks up. 

“Even if it was, doesn’t mean he gets kicked out,” Max says. “Does mean Charlie can’t let this happen, though.” 

Slit looks at him and then at Charlie, and she can see him trying to figure out the dynamic, who’s the one to be scared of and listen to. “We were just playing around,” he finally says. 

“You gonna be more careful?” Charlie asks. 

“Okay.” 

“If you hurt somebody else, you’ll have to leave. And you can’t come back.”

Slit squints at her for a second, and he finally says “That’s it?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re not going to…” 

“Mom doesn’t hurt people,” Nux says to Slit without looking at him. 

The Dag glares at Slit. “Maybe she should make an exception.”

Max huffs out a breath. “No exceptions.”

There’s a solid silence for a bit, quiet and tense. Capable asks, “Can we leave now?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “You can go.”

Capable and Nux both get up, hesitant to leave the other two alone. The Dag is six seconds away from being spitting mad again, and Slit is so subdued it’s concerning. He looks a bit like a cornered animal, and Charlie’s just waiting for him to bite. Maybe something will happen when it’s just them.

Charlie rubs the crease of her elbow with her opposite hand. Her missing hand aches. 

“Momma, I don’t like it,” the Dag grumbles, sitting back against the couch. 

“What don’t you like? I thought you wanted them here,” Charlie says. 

“Well I do, I want everybody to be happy, and safe. But this bastard is crazy like Joe, he hurt the little warboy on purpose. That’s not safe.”

“The world’s not safe, breeder,” Slit says. “The pup’s fine.” 

The Dag flies at him again, and this time she has a knife. It looks suspiciously like a hunting knife that Mom kept strapped to the back of the toilet, except now it’s at Slit’s throat while she sits on his chest. Her other hand is wrapped around his throat. “Call me a breeder again,” she says. “I’ll open your face again, and this time no one will staple it shut for you.” 

Max and Charlie make eye contact before they stand up to walk over to them. “Dag,” Max says.

She doesn’t break eye contact with the boy. “I am not a thing,” she says, slowly and evenly. “And you aren’t allowed to hurt people. Do you hear me?” 

Slit blinks, then nods once, almost imperceptibly “Yes,” he says raspily.

The Dag slides her thumb up to his jaw, presses in until he has to tilt his head back because of the pain. She has a curious look on her face. “I will kill you,” she says. “I don’t care if you’re Nux’s friend.” 

“Alright,” Max says then, and he takes a hold of her arm, not quite pulling it but definitely firm. “Off,” he tells her. “Don’t.” 

She glares but gets off of Slit. “Fucker,” she says. 

Charlie holds out her hand. “Give me the knife.” The Dag hands it over grumpily. “Don’t kill him, alright?” Charlie says. “Never.”

“Fine.” 

Charlie puts her hand on the girl’s head for a second. She thinks about hugging her, but the timing probably isn’t right. “You can go. You too,” she adds to Slit. “Be careful.”

“Oh, he’d better be,” the Dag says under her breath as she walks out. Slit avoids looking at them as he gets up too, and he slips out as quickly as he can. Charlie watches through the window; he follows the Dag. 

“Do you think she’ll be alright?” Max asks. 

“She’ll be fine.” It’s Slit who should be worried. Charlie needs to check on all the other weapons in the house to make sure the girls haven’t taken more. 

She’s in the middle of sweeping the second floor when the phone rings. She picks it up. “Hello?” 

“Hey, Char, it’s me. Splendid had her baby, it’s a boy.” Mom sounds like she’s smiling. “They’re both perfect, nothing wrong with them, so we can come home tonight. How’s things at the house?” 

“Max came back with a few more kids. So far only a dislocated shoulder and one death threat.” 

Mom laughs. “Okay. How’s your arm feeling?” 

“Alright. Aching, but the stump is healing. We’re fine here, though, don’t hurry. Oh. Is there still a shotgun under your mattress?” 

“No, I moved it after the kids got here.” 

“Good.” Charlie lets the mattress fall back down. “I’ll see you later, then.” 

“Okay. Bye.” 

“Bye.” 

Dinner is a buffet. Charlie makes the frozen pizzas she finds in her mom’s extra freezer and cuts up a dozen apples for them too. The Dag offers to help, but frankly she doesn’t trust her with the knives. And then led by Nux, the boys all come through the kitchen in an orderly fashion and then sit all throughout the first floor to eat. Nux stays away from Slit and near Capable. Toast stays by them as well, but Cheedo and Lip sit in the the other warboys, totally comfortable. 

The Dag, surprisingly, sits down directly next to Slit on the floor. Charlie watches her closely, watches how she pushes into the boy’s space and forces him to accommodate her. And she watches how Slit twitches and flinches, looks away but doesn’t stop her.

Mom calls again before bed to stay they’re staying overnight at the hospital, so Charlie and Max have to figure out bedtime themselves. It means a lot of sleeping bags and comforters on the floor, lots of sharing. The girls take Charlie’s room with her - Toast, Cheedo and Lip ask to share the bed. Capable and and Nux claim one side of the bed with Rem and Cor, while the Dag sits on the opposite side alone. 

“You guys have everything you need?” Charlie asks, before checking in on everyone else. 

“Yeah,” Toast answers, and a few of the others nod in agreement. 

“Okay. I’ll be back.” 

“I’ll come with you,” the Dag says suddenly, and follows her. 

An ulterior motive is pretty obviously at play, and Charlie can guess what. And sure enough, when they get to the room Slit’s in, the Dag goes straight up to him. After standing over him for a moment, she holds her hand out to him and tells him, “Don’t say no.” 

He doesn’t. He takes her hand and stands up. And just like that, apparently he’s staying the night with them. Charlie doesn’t feel completely comfortable with it, she has to say, no matter how much she’d like to trust Nux’s judgement. 

She stays sitting and awake after the lights are off. On one side of the bed, Capable and the boys are talking quietly together. Nux is tucked under Capable’s chin, his back against her chest, but he’s clearly anxious, probably about Slit. That boy’s quiet too, though, lying next to the Dag completely still as far as Charlie can tell. That’s concerning. 

She’s dozing when she hears Slit’s voice and wakes herself up. “I mean do you still worship him like all of you did before,” the Dag’s saying. “You have his staples in your face, you’re hurting the pups like he used to.”  

“It was an accident,” Slit growls. 

Nux speaks up from the other side of the bed. “He doesn’t have a choice about the staples,” 

“We could get them out,” the Dag says stubbornly. 

“Not the ones in my side,” Slit says. 

“It would hurt,” Nux says. 

“I don’t care about that, grinder,” the other boy says crossly. Charlie almost gets involved, but she decides to wait. 

“Then get them out,” the Dag’s saying. 

“Why would I do that, b-” Slit begins. 

There’s a bit of a rustle on their side of the bed and then Dag whispers, “If you call me a breeder ever again, I’ll dig that metal out of you with my fingernails and make you eat it.” 

“Dag,” Capable mumbles. 

“Fine,” Slit says. “I’ll do it. You got a knife?” 

Charlie gets involved then. “Stop,” she says. “No, you’re not cutting yourself open here. When my mom gets back, she can do it.” 

“Why?” Slit sits up. “Might as well get it out now, if this girl is going to give me so much trouble about it. Is _that_ alright to say?” he adds to the Dag. 

“Sure,” the Dag says. She seems smug.

“No,” Charlie says louder. “We’re waiting. And she won’t give you any trouble about it in the meantime, because I’m not going to let you, Dag, alright?” 

“Momma.” The Dag sounds disapproving, but not upset anymore. 

“I know. You made your point.” 

Charlie takes it from the silence that she’s made hers too. Then, after a second she hears Slit whisper, “I don’t worship him. I don’t.” 

“Good,” the Dag says. “Neither do any of us.” 

“He was a disgusting old man,” Toast speaks up. 

“He hurt all of us,” Nux murmurs, and Capable hums in agreement. “I can’t wait for Toast to kill him,” Nux adds.

“Ride on,” Toast says. 

Charlie loves her kids. “You guys should sleep,” she says. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” 

“But they might leave tomorrow,” Nux murmurs. “Maybe we can’t talk tomorrow. We might need talk now.” 

She won’t be sleeping anyways, frankly, with Slit in the room, so Charlie gets up. “I’m going to sit downstairs, out on the porch. If anybody else wants to come with me, you can. We can talk without waking the other kids up.” 

Nux jumps up with her, and hugs her. “Can I sit by you?” he asks. 

“Sure, of course.” 

Capable sits up too, and Toast. The Dag stands, and pulls Slit to his feet too. She’s not that strong, but he comes anyways. Charlie motions them before her out the door, and she notices for the first time that the Dag is the tallest of any of the kids, narrowly beating Nux. Slit is several inches shorter than her. 

Nux walks next to her, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Mom,” he says. “Why do the other boys have to leave?” 

“Well, we don’t have a whole lot of space here,” Charlie says. “And it costs a lot to take care of so many people, we don’t have a bunch of money. And I don’t know if I can trust them all.” 

“Oh.” Nux scratches the back of his head. “But you trust me?” 

“Yeah, I trust you.” Charlie puts her hand on his shoulder. “You proved yourself.”

Nux nods. He’s sleepy. When she sits down on the couch, he curls up next to her. “Can I?” he asks first, and waits for her approval before putting his head down on her shoulder. He’s on her right side, so she feels comfortable putting her arm around him after reaching over to turn a light on. 

Capable sits by the Dag on the opposite couch, and Slit sprawls out in the space on the Dag’s other side. Finally, Toast sits on the other end of Charlie’s couch, feet towards Nux. 

The room’s silent for a bit. “What did you want to talk about?” Charlie finally asks. 

“Where are the warboys going when they aren’t here?” Capable says. “Where did Max get you from?” 

Slit looks up at Charlie, like he expects her to answer. When she doesn’t, he says, “They say it’s called a group home, I guess.” 

“What’s that?” Toast asks. 

“It’s a place for…” 

“For wards of the state,” Charlie interjects. “People who are recovered from situations like yours, before they decide what to do with you.” 

Slit awkwardly nods and says, “Yeah. So.” 

“Where do you sleep?” Capable asks. “In one room?” 

“Yeah, in a big room, bunk beds.” Slit puts his knees up and rests his arms on them. 

“Is it like here?” Nux asks. 

Slit shakes his head once. “No. We have to do chores, and be quiet all the time. And the woman and man there are different.” 

Nux looks over at Charlie. “Where _is_ Max?” 

“Sleeping on the roof,” Charlie says, and Nux settles back in. “Different how?” she asks. 

Slit shrugs. “Stricter.” 

“Stricter like how?” Charlie asks. 

The question confuses him. This is a boy whose previous authority figure previously cut open his face, as far as Charlie can tell. He probably doesn’t know how to answer that. The Dag is the one who clarifies. “She means do they yell at you or hit you?” she says, milder than she’s ever talked to him before. 

“Not really.” 

“Really not really or do you not want to tell Mom,” Nux says. 

Slit gives him an angry squinty glare. “Nobody’s shredding anybody,” he says. “No preaching.” 

“How do they make you stay quiet?” Charlie tries. 

“No food. Or the basement, lock us in there.” 

Not great for these boys. Pretty standard for federal group homes. 

“So do you want to go back there?” Capable asks. 

Slit shrugs with one shoulder. 

“What does the shrug mean?” the Dag asks, sounding more normally annoyed. “That’s not a real answer. Give Mom a real answer.” 

“I don’t know what to say,” Slit snaps at her. “It doesn’t matter. We’re going wherever they decide we’re going. Not with Father Joe, so.” 

“Well I have news for you, warboy,” the Dag says, looking over at him. “Momma calls all the shots. And she wants to know what you want. Right?” 

“Right,” Charlie says. 

“What if we want to go back to Father Joe?” Slit challenges her.

“Well, you can’t do that,” Charlie says. “He’s wanted by just about every federal agency and he’ll be serving life in prison at least.”

“And he’s a rapist who cut your face open,” the Dag says disapprovingly. 

“Yeah, what happened there?” Toast asks. “You and Nux both?” 

“They were the ones who talked back to Father Joe about the pups,” Capable murmurs. 

Toast’s eyes widen a little; that means something to her. The Dag looks at Slit with something new in her eyes as well. “You two were them?” she asks. 

Slit shrugs again. 

“What does that mean?” Charlie asks Nux. 

Nux shrugs too. He’s gotten tense, and he hides his face against her shoulder. “It was a long time ago,” he says. “I don’t… I don’t know.” 

Charlie looks at the girls then, since the boys apparently don’t want to talk about it. The Dag tightens her lips and looks at Slit. Capable looks at her and then over at Toast, and whatever she sees there makes her answer. “I’m not sure,” she says. “We weren’t allowed to be near them most of the time. But I heard from Rem that Father Joe was doing something bad to the littler pups. Hurting them, I think. And two of the older warboys, these two, stood up to him and argued and so he shredded their faces.” 

“Just part of our faces,” Nux mumbles. “And it healed really fast.”

Charlie pulls away and looks at Nux’s face closely. He has scars on his cheeks and nose, the big ones on his lips. They don’t look too bad, compared to Slit’s, but they must’ve been painful. “I’m so sorry,” she says. 

Nux shrugs and cuddles in under her arm again. Charlie looks over at Slit then, and sees he’s so tense he looks almost brittle. The Dag reaches out to put her hand on his leg, and Slit twitches away from her. She puts her hand on him anyways and says, “That was brave.”

Slit just looks at her, so intensely that Charlie’s almost concerned.

“Do you want to go back to that?” the Dag says. 

The warboy holds her gaze. “No,” he says after a second, like he thinks that might be the wrong answer somehow. 

“Then don’t be a horse’s ass and pretend you want to just to make us angry,” she says definitively, and that settles the matter - and the room - for a while. 

Nux has been very still against her. She’s rubbing his arm a little, and he reaches up to hold her hand instead. “He was hurting them,” he mumbles. “We just… we had to do something.” 

“Yeah,” Charlie says. She should say more, but her chest is tight. 

“What was he doing to them?” Toast asks, and maybe it’s the solemnity in her voice or the feeling of solidarity in the room but she gets an answer. 

Slit shrugs. “He was making the little pups fight each other. To the death.”

“Where? When?” Capable demands, leaning forward to look around the Dag at him. 

“Out in the garage. Not that long ago.” Nux squeezes closer to Charlie at the words. Slit’s hand goes up to itch his temple, but then he ends up picking at the deep scar in his cheek. It’s still pink in the middle. This scar that makes him look cruel and frightening is there because he protected children. She reevaluates him. 

“I didn’t see you outside the gate, or on the chase,” the Dag says to Slit after a while. 

“Yeah, Joe didn’t take me,” Slit says. “Didn’t think I deserved Valhalla. Didn’t trust me, either.” 

“I wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t taken me,” Nux mumbles. “No active duty. I was just… I was trying to get his favor back.” 

And there’s no mocking or teasing from Slit. He understands, and he nods. This is a safe room for all of them - all the curtains are pulled and no one’s breaking in. They’re safe. 

“Y’know, Valhalla isn’t his idea,” Charlie says. “Vikings came up with it.” 

“Vikings?” Toast says. 

Charlie nods. “Soldiers from the North, they sailed in ships and fought and stole. And they didn’t fear death, because if a warrior died in battle, they went to Valhalla to live with their gods. Sounds like he stole that idea.” 

“Fuck,” the Dag says in surprise. 

“What were their gods?” Nux asks. “Who were they?” 

“Um, Thor was a big one. Odin, his father. And Odin’s wife. There were a bunch more, I don’t know all their names. They said that thunder and lightning was Thor striking his anvil in the sky.” 

“I like that,” Capable says. “That’s good.” 

“Are they the only people that believe in Valhalla?” Toast asks. 

“Well, the only ones who use that name. There are a bunch of different religions that believe in heaven. The Greeks.” 

“What did they call it?” 

“Elysium. They had a lot of different gods too. They had a goddess of war, Athena.” 

“Goddess?” the Dag says curiously. 

“Yeah. And a goddess of hunting.” She always liked Artemis. Goddess of the hunt, a perfect shot, who only let men near her if she wanted. It sounded like a good deal. And look where she ended up. 

The conversation dies out for a bit. She transitions to scratching Nux’s hair a little, slowly, while he snuggles in against her. Slit is tired but nervous still, flinching at every move the Dag makes. Toast and Capable are sleepy. And it’s nice, to sit here together. 

“Momma,” the Dag finally says. “If the boys can be trusted, will you let them stay?” 

“I don’t know,” Charlie says. “I don’t think I can… I can be mom to sixty kids. Or give them all enough attention or care.” 

“We don’t need care,” Nux says softly. “Just attention sometimes.” 

“You need food,” Charlie reminds him. “And clothes, and somewhere to sleep that isn’t the floor. You should go to school, and assimilate.” 

“Assimilate,” Toast repeats. 

“Yeah, fit into normal life. With other families, in a city with normal streets and houses and not in another walled-off compound in the middle of nowhere.” 

The Dag makes a face. “Normal sounds weird.”

“But compound’s better than the group home,” Nux says. “And I want… I want them to know what a Mom can be like. Even if you aren’t their mom.” 

Charlie chews on her lip. “Maybe. Let me think about it.” She has no idea how to make this work. “Do they - do you even want to stay here?” she asks Slit, who’s been quiet on the whole thing. 

“It doesn’t matter what he wants,” the Dag says sarcastically. ”Remember?” 

Slit glares at her, but he answers. “I’ll go wherever I’m needed. So if the pups come, I’ll come too. To take care of them.” 

“But what do you want?” Charlie repeats. 

He shifts away from the Dag as she pokes his arm, but not that far away. He lets her hand stay on him. And he says, “You should make the barn a garage, if you want Nux to build you more than half an arm.” 

“Do you like to build stuff too?” Charlie asks him. 

“Sure. No gift like Nux, though. I just tinker.” 

The Dag smiles at that. “What a curious word,” she murmurs. 

“You’re a curious girl,” Charlie finds herself saying back. She’s a mom. It’s okay if she sounds like she loves her kids. 

The Dag smiles, leaning her head against Capable for a snuggle. “Momma,” she says after a bit. “I’ve been thinking. This isn’t about anyone besides me. But I think I don’t want the little thing in me.” 

“Good for you,” Capable says. 

“Okay. I’ll make an appointment,” Charlie says. 

The Dag nods, settling back in against the couch. She picks her head up to look at Slit. “Father Joe’s baby inside me,” she clarifies. “I’m getting it out. Because I’m not just an object for men to put their children in.” 

He doesn’t answer her. He looks at her for long minutes, long after she looks away. He watches her whisper to her sister and then laugh, and though his defensive stance doesn’t change, Charlie watches as he softens. 

Nux falls asleep lying against her. Capable and the Dag fall asleep leaning against each other, and Toast even nods off, sitting straight up. Charlie can’t sleep with Slit here - definitely while he’s still awake, at least, - but he’s apparently not tired or something. He’s awake and still looking at the Dag whenever he can. 

Charlie hears the front gate open in the early morning, before the sky lightens, and she slips away from Nux. It almost startles her when Slit stands up too. She was too comfortable, she almost forgot there was a hostile here with her. “It’s fine, it’s just my mom,” she says. 

“Okay.” He doesn’t sit down. 

“You can stay here,” she clarifies. “It’s fine.” 

Slit hesitates for a second, and after several long moments, he says gruffly, “ _Can_ I come?” 

“Sure,” she says after a second. She wants to ask why, but instead she leads him outside. 

Mom’s getting out of her van when Charlie steps outside. Splendid’s door is open, and Slit runs to help her before anybody else can. Splendid doesn’t even flinch at his scars, she smiles, exhausted, and says “Thank you, love.” Slit nods. 

“What’s the baby’s name?” Charlie asks. 

“Adam,” Splendid says. “First man.” She kisses the baby’s head and leans heavily on Slit to get to the house. “We have more warboys now?” 

Charlie nods, looking to her mom. “Yeah. Max showed up with a dozen of them.” 

“Are they staying?” 

“I don’t know. I wanted to talk with you, Mom, about it actually.” 

“Okay,” Mom nods. “Can we sleep first?” 

“Sure, yeah. G’night.” 

“Night, honey.” Mom hugs her with one arm before going inside. Charlie brings up the rear, locking the door behind her. She and Splendid and the baby head upstairs, and Slit ends up following Charlie, mostly because he seems a little lost. 

Charlie takes several ibuprofen in the kitchen before anything else. Her missing hand is aching worse than ever. She’s tired, and she’s in pain but she has these kids. She can’t waver.

“You know Splendid?” she asks Slit without looking at him. 

“Yeah, we know all the wives.” He leans against the counter a ways away from her. 

“No, do you know her? Like, personally.” 

Slit looks at her curiously. “No. We weren’t allowed to talk to the wives.” 

“They’d like to be called the sisters now,” Charlie reminds him. “And I don’t want to take care of any situations where the Dag is trying to rip things out of you again.” 

Slit nods, and he runs his fingers over one side of his scar again. “The sisters,” he repeats. “They like Nux.” 

“Well, yeah. I just… we had more time with him, I think, is the only…” Charlie devolves into a mumble, and then restarts. “Yeah, they like him. They like all you boys.” 

“Why didn’t you kill him?” 

Charlie’s heart kind of stutters when she remembers how close she got to doing just that. “Um,” she says. “Well. I almost did. He was slowing us down. And he jumped out of the car while it was going eighty miles an hour to get back to Joe. It took six hours of driving to get him back.” 

“Why did you want to get him back?” 

“Because I… cared about him. About all of you. Joe’s been abusing you for years, I was going to take as many of you as I could get.” She really didn’t have a choice, when she thinks about it. She’s not nearly cold enough to leave any of those kids with the psycho that hurt them, even to finish her job. “Do you want to stay?” she asks him again. 

Slit runs his hand over his hair nervously. “Sure,” he says. “If the pups can stay.” 

“I’ll think about it,” she finally says. 

Max joins them in the kitchen after a bit. “Hey,” he says. 

“Y’alright?” Charlie asks. 

“Sunrise woke me up. Kids okay?” 

“Yeah, everyone’s fine. Splendid and Mom just got back, she has a baby boy named Adam.” Charlie looks at him for a few moments. Max always looks like he’s thinking about bolting. “You gonna stick around after this whole thing is figured out?” 

“I dunno,” he says. “Seems like you have too many people here.” 

“Nah.” Charlie shrugs. “Not yet.” 

 

 

 

Nux and Slit present her with the finished arm after about two months. Slit and the other pups have lived with them for more than a month, but all of them besides Nux are still shy. So everyone’s watching her from the doorway of the room as Nux helps her put the arm on. The leather fits as well as before, but it’s heavier with all the metal pieces. 

“It should work really well,” Nux says, babbling nervously. “A lot of your arm is still intact, all of the muscles, so the sensors can pick up the deep muscle contraction signals and transmit that to the electrical system of the arm. And we made sure your trigger finger is the most responsive so you can learn to shoot with it if you want.” 

He’s so nervous he flinches when she reaches out for him, but then he lets her hug him with her good arm. “It’s okay,” she says. “Thank you. Tell me how to work it.” 

“Okay. Okay. Well, tighten the straps and then try to move your fingers.” 

It won’t work. She knows it and reminds herself as she tightens the fastenings. She can’t expect Nux to have made her a functioning arm out of parts he got on Ebay. But she knows her son, and she knows that maybe he did. Maybe. And even if he didn’t, she loves him. 

She tries to move her fingers and it works. The metal fingers twitch, curl closed when she thinks that too. It works. All of it. She makes a fist and then splays her fingers out wide, and it actually works, with some mechanical buzzing and clicks. Then she looks at Nux in complete disbelief. “How’d you do this?” 

Nux grins so brightly. “I dunno. Does it feel good?” 

“Yeah, honey, it does, come here.” She hugs him, both arms, and she thinks she has to be careful with her new arm and hand to be gentle but _fuck_ , she has a new arm and hand. Nothing else matters. She hugs him tightly. “Thank you, this is amazing.” 

“I’m glad you like it.” 

She lets go of him, looks at Slit next. “I know you helped too, thank you.” 

He blushes to the tips of his ears. The marks on his cheek where the staples came out are still newly pink, small scabs from where Mom’s knife wasn’t precise enough. He still looks intimidating, but she also knows he won’t stop her from hugging him, and he doesn’t. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Glad it works.”

Charlie looks at all the kids in the doorway next. “Did you guys help?” she asks. A few of them nod. “Thank you all so much, this works great.” 

“Mom, come outside,” Nux says excitedly, “C’mon, the arm’s really strong, you can probably punch something with it. And you should shoot a gun, we made sure the fingers are a good fit for triggers of everything, handguns and shotguns.”

“Single shot bolt action rifles,” Slit adds. “Since that’s your favorite gun.” 

“Right!” Nux nods. “Yes. Especially those.” 

True to their word, the trigger finger fits very well. She’s twitchy and not the best shot, but her new hand doesn’t shake. It’s steady. Her shots hit. She has two working hands.

“Nice,” Max says, squinting at the target. “Good job,” he says to Nux. “Really, did good work.” 

“Thanks.” Nux gets bashful. It seems like only a matter of time before he calls Max Dad one day, but Charlie figures she’ll cross that bridge when she gets there. 

She hugs Nux again. “Thank you,” she says seriously. “You did a miraculous job.” 

“I’m so glad it works,” Nux mumbles. Then he brightens up. “You wanna show Capable?” 

“Of course.” She wants to show all the girls. She just might stay away from the baby Adam for a while. But holy shit, she has an arm. 

She has the best damn kids in the world.

 

 

 

Max disappears again, with no word or warning, so it falls to Charlie to pick up the last boys from their group home. These foster parents have put up a lot of roadblocks to her getting the boys back. They don’t want to give the boys back, so Charlie’s taking them. She may or may not pack a case of guns as well. 

Instead of an RV or a van, she uses the shuttle Max brought home one day. He does that, keeps “finding” vehicles and bringing them home. It’s useful, though. Room for twenty boys and a luggage rack. And, once Nux took off the regulator, capable of decent speed. 

She drives, and Slit comes with her as her lieutenant. His word, not hers. Joe ran his cult like a branch of the military, so she thinks the boys find a similar structure comforting. She’s General Mom, with Nux and Slit as her lieutenants. The girls are all colonels, and the other warboys are a variety of officers and privates. She doesn’t mind it. A system gives them an idea of who to obey, and keeps her from having to oversee everything. 

So Slit comes as lieutenant. She doesn’t trust him as much as she trusts Nux, but it’s close. The warboys will listen to him. She needs him. So they take the trip there together, mostly in silence. 

“I don’t know what we’re walking into,” she says, pulling in the driveway. “But no matter what, we aren’t leaving without them.” 

“Okay.” 

She has a gun in her ankle holster, and her metal arm securely, comfortably on. They’ll be okay, she reminds herself. But she’s still kind of wishing she brought Toast for tactical backup. 

She knocks on the door, and in response hears yelling inside, someone telling someone else to get the door. When it opens, there’s a tall skinny warboy standing there. He has fresh bruises on his arm, and the way Slit inhales softly means that’s significant. “Zac,” Slit says quietly. “Charlie’s here to help.” 

The boy, Zac, looks at Charlie and the look in his eyes is undoubtably fear. It’s an odd combination of feelings inside her, protectiveness swirling with the cold logic a mission always clicks her into. She exhales, and she extends her hand to shake his. “Hi, nice to meet you,” she says, reminding herself to be gentle. “I don’t know how long we have before she notices you’re talking to us, so tell me what I need to know about here.” She sees a subtle nod from Slit in her peripheral.

“The mother knows Father Joe,” Zac says immediately. “Fox and Sam are locked downstairs, they’re being punished. She just went down. The father isn’t home now.” 

“Good, thank you. Where is she?” 

“Basement.” Zac points.

Charlie walks inside quickly, wiggling her fingers out of habit as she’s taken to doing, just to make sure it keeps working. Slit follows quickly, telling Zac “Don’t go near her, we’re taking care of it.”

The door to the basement is locked, but her arm can pull off the doorknob easily and she does. She can hear someone crying out downstairs, and Slit pushes past her on the stairs to run down. So Charlie hurries too, and gets down just in time see Slit shove a woman away from a little boy, one of the youngest pups. The woman stumbles into a washing machine. Another boy is there too, a redhead, winded and trying to get up. The little boy hugs Slit tightly. 

“Come here,” Charlie barks, and Slit obeys. He ducks behind her with the kid, and she puts herself physically between them and the woman. “Hey,” she begins to the red-headed kid. 

“Fox,” Slit says. 

“Fox, come here,” Charlie says. “I’m taking you with me, I’m Charlie. I’ve got all the other boys with me.” 

The boy wants to listen, but the woman stops him, grabbing his arm roughly. “You aren’t taking them anywhere,” she says. “They belong here, with me, where they can follow the teachings of the Father.” 

“No, they belong with their brothers somewhere safe. Slit, take them upstairs to the car, we’re going.” She intends to walk forward to get the boy, but then the woman pulls a gun from the laundry basket and points it past Charlie at Slit. 

“Slit, stay here. Or I’ll send you to Valhalla myself.” 

Charlie doesn’t move for several seconds, trying to pick a plan. “Do you go to Valhalla?” she asks the woman. 

That question throws her. “Of course,” she says. 

“No,” Fox says. “Women don’t go to Valhalla.” 

“Hey,” she snaps, pointing the gun at Fox’s head instead. “Shut your mouth, pup.” 

“Charlie,” Slit says urgently. 

“Get the gun off the kid and I won’t hurt you,” Charlie says. That gets the gun at her, and that’s what she wanted. She puts her metal hand up and walks forward. Two shots deflect off the palm, and then she twists the gun out of the woman’s hand. She thinks she crushes it in the process, but she doesn’t crush Fox. She pulls him free and pushes him behind herself. “Go,” she says. “Follow Slit to the car.” 

Slit is still holding the smaller boy in his arms. “C’mon,” he nods. “Let’s go.” He herds the boys upstairs. Charlie is turning to follow, but she hears something and turns back, drawing and firing before she’s registered the sound. She shoots the woman through her lower leg and then through the bicep, effectively stopping her from what she was trying to do, which is hit her over the head with a pipe. 

“Go,” Charlie says when the boys stop at the sound. “Zac, how long do we have until the man gets back?” She follows them up the steps, holding the gun just in case.

“I don’t know, any time, he just went on an errand,” Zac says. 

There are other boys waiting at the top of the stairs. “Gunshots,” one says. 

“Go outside, there’s a van, get in it,” Slit says shortly. “You have two minutes to pack whatever you want to take. Anything you don’t have, Charlie can get it for you, so don’t take too long.” 

They obey him. Charlie barricades the door behind them, so the woman can’t get out, and she checks the house for more guns in easy reach. Zac helps her, pulling a shotgun off from on top of an armoire and giving it to her. “Don’t you need to pack?” Charlie asks. 

“Don’t have anything worth keeping,” he says with a shy smile. “There’s a revolver under the middle couch cushion.” 

“How does she know Joe?” Charlie asks, getting the revolver and sticking it in her pocket. 

“Don’t know. He calls sometimes. Where are we going, does Joe know?” 

“He knows where it is, but we have a restraining order and he’ll never come near you. Get out, take these to the car. This is good enough.” Charlie lets Zac have the shotgun and two more guns he found. “How many boys here?” she asks. 

“Nine.” 

Charlie counts the boys as they head outside, lead by Slit. The last of the nine is slipping outside with his backpack when she hears Slit. “Charlie!” 

“Shit.” She runs outside. There’s a cop car. A fucking cop car. The woman must’ve had a cell phone. And of course both their guns are pointed at Zac, with his armful of guns. And then at her, when she makes it out. “Easy,” she says, coming to a halt. “Easy. I’m a federal agent. Let me reach for my wallet.” 

“Put down the weapons!” 

“Zac,” she says, slow and even. “Drop them, drop them now.” She tosses hers down and waits for Zac to do the same before she gets her wallet out. “Look, this is my badge,” she says, showing them. “I’m rescuing these boys from an abusive foster home.”

“We have a report that you shot a woman inside that house.” 

“I did, when she attempted to cave my head in.” 

They still don’t drop their guns. “What’s that on your left hand?” 

“It’s my prosthetic hand, my sons made it for me. Do you want me to remove it?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

She undoes the straps easily - bless Nux - and pulls it off, then waves her stump at the police officers. “Alright? Are we good?” 

They holster their weapons. “We’ll need to confiscate those guns,” one says. 

“They’re all yours. We just didn’t want them in the house.” Charlie puts her arm around Zac and guides him to the shuttle. “Get in, stay in,” she says to Slit, who’s the only one left outside.

“No,” he says fiercely. “I’m with you.”

“I promise I’m okay,” she says. “The badge does a lot. Just get inside, start the car. Try to calm the kids. I’ll be right in. We’ll regroup after that.” 

He goes, reluctantly, and that’s a good thing because the badge doesn’t sort everything out. The police want to take a report, so they want her name and badge number, and they call her superior and then CPS, and it’s a half hour before she can even get inside the shuttle to check on the kids. 

“Hey, is everybody alright?” she asks, climbing the few steps. 

The boys are all sitting and quiet, doing preliminary first aid on each other. They’re all hurt. Slit is kneeling next to the smallest boy, Sam, from the basement, and putting a bandage over a scrape on his knee. “We’re fine,” Slit nods. 

“Anybody need anything?” she says. 

Slit looks to the kids, silently prompting them to answer. It’s Zac who speaks this up, looking hopeful and still a little scared. “Is there something to eat?” 

Of course these people didn’t feed them enough. “Sure,” Charlie says. “We can stop somewhere and get lunch. Whatever you guys want.” She’ll get some looks. Every single one of these boys have bruises, a few have black eyes. But it’s fine, she decides it’s fine. She’ll take these boys out for lunch. 

“Do you need help to put your arm back on?” Slit asks after a second, motioning at her stump. 

“No,” she says. “I was just waiting. I think it freaks them out.” Charlie slips her arm into its pocket, and buckles the straps around her chest. The fingers still move perfectly. “They don’t believe my kids made it for me, either,” she says. “But I guess most people don’t have teenagers who are also biomechanical engineers.” 

That gets a rare smile out of Slit. “Can we go?” he asks. 

“In a second. There’s a gun taped to the bottom of the driver’s seat, if anything goes wrong. And if you have to get out of here, get back home and don’t worry about me.”

“But… I mean, okay.” 

He’s the only subordinate she’s ever had that stops himself from arguing. She has to encourage him to speak his mind, but not right now. She needs him to get the boys safe. So she just nods and rolls her shoulders out. “Five more minutes,” she says. 

It’s twenty more minutes of the officers giving her arm suspicious looks before she’s allowed to get the kids out of here, but they get on the road. Charlie drives. “We have to put some distance between them and us, but we can get food in an hour, maybe,” she says to Slit. 

“That’s fine, they won’t complain.” 

“They can,” Charlie says. 

“Right, I know. But they won’t.” Slit rubs his thumb over the scars in his cheek, a bit of a nervous habit he’s developed. 

“Do you know how Joe knows these people?” Charlie asks. “If there’s more?” 

“No,” Slit shakes his head. “No idea. We could use those guns the police took, the father is going to follow us.” 

“I know,” Charlie says grimly. 

She calls Toast. “I need backup. You know how to track this car’s GPS, meet us as soon as possible. Bring guns. The last boys were being kept by one of Joe’s devout, and this might be a tricky extraction. Or… trip home, I guess.” 

Toast snorts. “Alright. On my way.” 

“Thanks, honey.” 

“Of course, Mom. I’ll keep my phone on me.” 

She takes the kids to a diner, leading the pack inside with Slit. They need to seat themselves, so she directs several kids to move some tables together. She sits at the head, with Slit at her right hand. Zac takes her left side, and Sam sits next to Slit. She doesn’t exactly know them all yet, but she’s fiercely protective already. 

“Get whatever you want,” she says. “I can answer any questions, alright? We just need to get out of here kinda fast.” 

Their waitress only falters for a second when she sees them, her professionally cheerful facade slipping for the briefest moment. “What can I get ya’ll?” she asks. She sets down water by Zac, and Zac flinches hard. After that, she gives each boy a verbal warning. “Comin’ through!” or “Watch out.” 

Charlie would order first, so nobody has to worry about the responsibility, but she doesn’t want anything to eat. So Slit goes. “I’ll take a chocolate milkshake and a Reuben.” The boys each get something close to that in price. They order with different degrees of volume and with gradually increasing confidence. And then they wait.

They loosen up, just a bit. The littler ones smile at the waitress when she brings their plates. They share food, and they stop moving like any wrong twitch could get them killed. She’s proud of them. And she tips the waitress extra. She thanks her too. “You were great,” she says. “You did really fantastic job, thank you.” 

“Sure,” the waitress nods. Her nametag says her name is Deb. “Some kinda camp?” 

“In a way. Yeah. Have a great day.” 

“You too, darlin’.” Deb doesn’t even look at the tip. Charlie wishes she had more cash to give her. 

Most of the kids get boxes for what’s left of their food, travel cups for their milkshakes. She makes sure nobody forgets them on their way out, and she herds them out the door. “Ma’am?” Sam says, looking up at her. “What happened to your arm?” 

“Father Joe took it,” she says. “And then Nux and Slit got me a new one.” 

“Can I touch it?” 

“Sure.” She holds the hand out, and Sam pokes the mesh covering the hand parts. 

“How does the metal know what you’re thinking?” he asks. 

Charlie looks to Slit for the answer there. He’s got a trace of a smile on his face. “Well, there are sensors,” he begins. And then Charlie gets shot. 

The sound is distinctive, or else she wouldn’t have noticed. It feels like she got punched in the shoulder. Her only good shoulder, actually, but then she realizes what happened and she pushes the boys forward. “Run,” she says. “Get to the car, take cover.” And she runs too, while adrenaline still has her blood pumping. The shuttle’s too far away. The shot was taken at maybe a hundred yards, the building across the street. He’ll shoot again - he does shoot again, skimming past her. He’s not a great shot. 

They take cover behind a black sedan. “Wait, Charlie, your shoulder,” Slit says.

She makes brief eye contact with him. “Drive,” she says. “Keep the kids away from the windows, be safe but don’t get caught.” Another shot taken, cracks the window above her head.

“No, you’re coming with us,” he says. He’s too smart to miss what she means. 

Charlie uses her mechanical arm to get the small pistol from her ankle holster. “I’ll meet you back home,” she says. “Get them there.”

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not on that shuttle.” 

“I’m giving you an order. You have to-” 

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not on that shuttle,” he repeats, but this time he adds, “Please, Mom.”

Her pistol isn’t made for long shots. She needs a real gun. “I need my handgun from the car,” she says. “There are more clips in the glove compartment. Are any of the boys inside?” 

Slit is suspicious, but he peeks over the car and calls out, “Throw us the gun from under the driver seat. Clips in the glove box.” 

They’re about six cars away, and the boy is smart. He skids it under the cars instead of trying to throw it. Another boy a few cars ahead helps too, catching it and tossing it back to her. Charlie catches it, then winces. She keeps forgetting to use her left arm. 

“You’re bleeding pretty bad,” Slit says. 

“Shh.” Charlie closes her eyes and forces herself to concentrate. The shot came from above and to the right a little bit. Second story window, maybe third but the bullet didn’t exit her that low. A big round, but not hollow-point. She tosses her tiny gun to Slit. “Draw fire around the end of the car. I’m gonna try to pick the window he’s in.” 

Slit nods, and he crawls away to take some shots around the back of the car. He doesn’t do a bad job of aiming, actually, but he almost gets shot himself for his trouble. Charlie catches the bright bursts of muzzle fire from a second story window. She uses the heel of her palm to click a clip into place and braces herself carefully. 

“Stay down,” she says. He nods, and she pops up to take three careful shots through the broken car windows. Then she ducks down, in case the guy shoots back, but he doesn’t. Even when she sticks her head back up, no more shots, so she gets up and yells at Slit, “C’mon, to the shuttle, now.” 

The adrenaline’s fading but she makes it into the shuttle. Slit gets in the driver’s seat, which is probably good since her right arm is quickly weakening. She does a headcount to make sure no one’s missing, counts again, and then she tells Slit, “Drive as fast as you can, now. Boys, stay down until he says otherwise.” 

“Going.” Slit sounds tense.

She flattens herself on the floor with the boys and counts the seconds. They get out of the parking lot and around the corner. She hears several shots, but nothing hits. 

“Get pressure on Charlie’s shoulder,” Slit says. 

Zac’s the only one brave enough to obey. He kneels next to her and takes off his shirt to press it into her shoulder wound. He rips it in half, to put half of it under her as well. “Are you gonna be okay?” he asks. 

“Maybe,” Charlie says, a little strained. It’s starting to actually hurt. “So that was the husband. He’ll follow us. Everybody needs to stay down. We need to get out of the populated area.” 

“Black sedan on our tail,” Slit calls back. 

“It’s him,” Fox confirms, peeking up before ducking back down. 

Police are probably sixty seconds out maximum, with the rapid gunfire and eyewitnesses. They’ll pull them all over unless Slit can get out of here. And if they’re pulled over, the kids probably won’t be allowed to come back with her without an investigation. That’s weeks in another home, and the kids are scared and hurt already. 

“Slit,” she says. “Slit, I need to talk to him.” And it hurts to yell.

Zac nods. Charlie closes her eyes for just a second, and next thing she knows, Slit is nudging her back to consciousness. “Hey, Charlie, wake up. Don’t pass out yet, c’mon.” He touches her hesitantly, her hand and then her cheek. “Stay with us. Please.”

“‘M not going anywhere.” Her enunciation apparently is, though. She’s slurring. She’s in shock and evidently losing blood fast. “Listen. Toast is on th’way. Shoots. Backup. Don’t let anybody on or off. Don’t stop. Police.” She takes a really deep breath. Her shoulder hurts. “Police can’t be trusted. If they pull you over, don’t speak. Call Max.” 

“You need to go to a hospital,” Slit says. Her vision is blurry, but she can see he’s worried. 

“Later. I’ll be fine. Get them back first.” She takes several deep breaths, still feeling dizzy. “I’m okay. Sit me up, I need to sit. Blood will go slower.” 

“Slower if you could be calm, too.” Slit sits her up between the seats, leaning back against the wall. He kneels next to her. “We’re still an hour from home.” 

There are more shots fired, but not at them. “What happened?” she asks, blinking slowly. 

“He shot out the wheels of the police car,” Slit says. 

“Didn’t see that one coming,” she murmurs. Her brain works slower than before, but it still works. Several seconds later, she works her mouth open to speak. “Stop the car. Where’s my gun?” 

“What are you planning?” 

“I need you to help me take a hostage.” 

Slit doesn’t even hesitate. “Okay, take me. Why?” 

She takes a second to put together the sentence. “I need a Mexican standoff near a place with a high vantage point in ten minutes.” 

He nods after a second. “Okay. You can stand?” 

“Yep. Tell me when.”

She counts the seconds to keep herself from sleeping. After six hundred and fifty seven seconds, Slit takes her hand. “Come on,” he says. He puts her gun in her left hand and helps her stand up. “You can lean on me.” 

“No, I’m alright.” She can stand, her legs work fine. Carefully, she puts her arm around Slit’s neck and pulls him close to herself. “The safety will be off,” she says. “But I won’t shoot you. I promise, I’d never hurt you.” 

“I know. You should take my arms, though. Better.” 

Charlie nods, and slips her arms around his, holding them behind his back. It’s her metal arm, so she has to be careful not to hurt him. “Tell me if it hurts,” she says, blinking several times to make her eyes stay open. 

“I will.” 

She walks him out with her gun at his head, finger on the trigger. Slit isn’t even tense. He’s completely relaxed in her grip. Even if it’s just for show, it helps. And just like she thought, when she gets out, the man is waiting for her. The boys stopped the shuttle off the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere. Perfect. And just like she thought he would, the man stopped too and is aiming a rifle at them from behind his open car door. 

“Don’t shoot or I’ll shoot,” she says as loud as she can. Slit still has to repeat it for her. 

“Why should I care?” the man yells back. 

She sighs. “Because,” she raises her voice. “If I kill one of Joe’s most loyal, he won’t be too thrilled with you.” 

The man sights down the barrel of his gun, so she moves behind Slit for a second. “He’ll be glad I sent one of his favored to Valhalla,” he says. 

Slit tenses then. “Nope,” Charlie says, louder than ever. “He’d be pissed, because that Valhalla stuff is all bullshit. You know that, don’t you? He told you that.” 

“I think I’ll just shoot your hostage and then shoot you and take the boys back,” he calls, falsely casual. She can tell he means it. There’s no waver in his voice or his hands when he raises his gun, so she pushes Slit out of the way. 

She has no time to take a shot of her own. But the rifle fired isn’t the man’s. He falls, shot through the hand, and then Toast howls victoriously. The boys taught her that. Slit howls back. And then he steadies Charlie on her feet. “Did you know that was happening?” he asks.

“I hoped.” 

“So you were going to take a bullet if you were wrong?” 

Charlie opens and closes her mechanical hand a couple times. “Wasn’t wrong. Have people I can count on. Get Toast’s first aid kit. I’m going to faint soon.” 

Slit comes back with a first aid kit and also Max. Max kneels in front of her and puts his hand on top of her head. “Rough day, huh,” he says. 

“Pretty good, considering. Got the last boys,” she says. 

Max nods with a little smile. “Let’s get your shoulder fixed up so you stay here with them.” 

“What about you?” she asks. “Last time I heard from you, you were on the West Coast again.” 

“Yeah, picked up a present for you,” Max says. “Might be able to stick around for a bit now.” 

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are so heavy, and she’s cold. “Gonna nap,” she murmurs. 

“Alright. We’ll be home soon.” 

 


	5. Chapter 5

They don’t get home. She wakes up when the shuttle is pulled over by the police. There’s a bag of blood connected to her arm through a needle, half-drained, which is probably why she feels so lively. Given the amount of blood gone, she’d say she’s been out for almost an hour. They aren’t home, so they must’ve been pulled over for a while. And her gun and the boys aren’t anywhere near, so she’s worried. 

First thing she has to do is get outside. She picks the needle out of her arm and ties a knot in the cord to keep it from draining, all while looking around anxiously. Outside she can see all the boys sitting on the side of the road in a row out the front and police cruisers out the back. Not good. 

She steps outside, blinking at the sun, and stays by the door for a moment to get a good grasp on the situation. She sees the police back by their cars, talking to Max, so she creeps up to the boys. Slit’s closest, with Sam under his arm. “Hey,” she whispers. 

Slit looks up and he’s so relieved to see her. “Hey, you’re okay?” 

“I’m fine. What’s happening?” She sits against the grille of the car so she’s out of sight. And also because she’s tired. 

“Police are saying they’re going to take us,” Slit says. “Max isn’t our legal guardian, and you aren’t anyone’s but mine and Toast’s, so they’re trying to figure out where we’re going.” 

“Well, you’re coming with me,” she says. “Obviously. I just need to figure out how.” 

Zac peeks out from further down the line. “What’s happening? Is she okay?” he says quietly down the line. 

“Mom’s fine,” Slit tells him.

All the boys are scared. They all start semi-whispering at once, asking what will happen and what to do, and she shushes them. “If you can be quiet, come here,” she tells them. And they’re all very good at taking orders, so they’re very quiet as they all get closer to her, forming a little circle around her.  

“What’s the plan?” Fox asks. “Can we run?” 

“No, we can’t leave them behind. They’ll be in real trouble. Toast shot a guy.” Not that they’ll ever believe it was her. She’s a teenager. It’ll be pinned on Max, and he’ll go down for it. “Let me think,” she says. 

“I don’t want to go to another foster house,” Sam whispers. 

“Well, if the police won’t listen to Max or me, then you might have to for another night.” She’s aches, both shoulders. 

Sam doesn’t argue but he presses closer against Slit. The older boy rubs his head and speaks for him. “What if Joe has another home for a backup? Or it’s like some of the other places we’ve gotten warboys from.”

“I didn’t say it’d be safe, I’m just saying we might not have a choice.” The words feel false as she says them, chalky and wrong. 

Slit isn’t fooled. He gives her a fierce look, somewhat less fierce without the staples in his face but plenty intimidating. “We have a choice,” he says. 

So they have a choice. Just not a great one. As she’s thinking, her phone rings in her pocket. Frowning, she picks up the call. “Hello?” 

“Hey Mom. Nice shoulder wound.” It’s Toast. 

“Where are you?” 

“I’m about two hundred yards away with my rifle aimed at those cops. Finger not on the trigger, don’t worry. What’s the play?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“We can’t let them go,” Toast says. “If this guy was anything like Joe, they’re all scared and brainwashed and vulnerable. Probably back to thinking they aren’t worth shit, and they’re all beat, I bet. I mean, I’m sorry. No pressure.” 

Charlie sighs. “Pressure’s fine. Don’t shoot the cops. Hand signals if I need anything, alright?” 

“Sounds good, Momma. Work that badge. And that Zac kid wants a hug. Just calling that right now.” 

“Alright. Thanks. Talk to ya.” 

“Bye.” She hangs up, and then she holds her arm out to Zac, just to see. “C’mere,” she says, when it looks like he needs additional convincing. And that does it. He crawls over and sits next to her, only flinching a little at her metal arm around him. Then he leans against her all at once, and she pats his arm. “It’s gonna be fine,” she says. “So we need a plan. We have Toast for backup.” 

“We could slash their tires and drive away,” Slit suggests. 

“Destruction of federal property is pretty serious. And they know one of us shot somebody, and they know I shot somebody else. We need to minimize the felonies from here on out.” 

“Felony?” Fox asks. 

“Crime. Serious crime with lots of jail time.” 

Everyone’s quiet. Charlie thinks, and she doesn’t let herself feel too much about why they’re all deathly silent besides not having ideas. She narrows her eyes as she thinks, and she combines everything they have until she gets a good idea. 

“Okay. Go along with what I do, no matter what. Okay?” 

Slit nods reluctantly, and she wonders how much of her plan he can guess. Zac nods, and all the other boys do too. They _are_ scared and hurt, and those psychopath parents definitely beat them all. They deserve some protection. She hugs Zac closer and then stands up. “Okay,” she says. “I love you. All of you. I’ll take care of this.” 

She walks towards the police with full intention of turning herself in. A few nights in jail is fine to get the kids home. 

“Darling,” Max says when he meets her eyes. “Glad you’re feeling better.” 

It takes three seconds for her to decide his plan is probably better. “Me too,” she says. Short answers are best for lies. 

“So we’ve cleared just about everything up with our superiors,” he says. “Told you my badge going missing would bite us in the ass.” 

She nods, smiles tightly. “Yeah, you told me. So can we head home now?” 

“These boys have had a rough few weeks,” Max agrees. But if he’s been talking with them for any amount of time then they’re fucked. 

The officers shake their heads. “Well, we really wish we could do that, sir-” 

“These boys have survived a cult,” Charlie says, and she feels a way that she can only describe as Furiosa again. “A cult that idolized ritualistic torture.” And something clicks in her head then, and she raises her voice. “Slit. Come here.” While he’s running, she talks. “Ritualistic torture and suicide. The boys were encouraged to hurt themselves, and-” 

Slit stops at her side. “Yeah?” 

She apologizes mentally and turns him around, pulling down his shirt collar. “He branded every child he took in,” she says. “No painkillers or anesthetic. Hot metal and skin, just like cattle. Second degree burns are the most painful. Have you ever been branded?” 

The police are paler. Then she turns Slit back around. When he raises his head and they get a real look at his face, they go paler. Charlie capitalizes on that. “Joe cut this boy’s face open himself for talking out of turn. And that home they were just at they were beaten and worse. So you’re asking me release them into your custody when it was the government who put them there in the first place? Honestly?” 

Slit sniffs deeply, itches his cheek. That’s the perfect way to play it, actually, because it makes them visibly ill to see that. And they give in. “We can let you go for today, but just today,” one says. “We’ll have to come by to check on you at home.” 

“Sure,” she says. She doesn’t let them know her home is a walled and gated community housing close to seventy people. That’s hard to explain. 

She hugs Slit on the way back to the shuttle. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” he says roughly. “We’re going home, so.” 

“Yeah, but you aren’t a sideshow attraction. I hate doing that to you. Sorry.” She rubs her shoulder. “I don’t think you look gross or anything.”

Slit doesn’t answer, but he pats her back before he pulls away so she thinks she’s forgiven. 

“Come on, kids,” she says to the boys. “We’re going home.” 

 

 

The Dag is waiting for them when they get back, a tall ethereal figure in a white dress. Charlie smiles when she sees her, and stays in the passenger seat, watching. The Dag bites her index fingernail and watches each boy get off the shuttle, but her expression doesn’t change until she sees Slit. Her eyes get warm then, and she just looks at him. 

Max speaks up from the driver’s seat. “You gonna come inside?” 

“Yeah,” she says. But she needs his help to stand up, and she ends up leaning on him to walk, too. 

The Dag smiles at them when she sees them too. “Parents are back,” she says to Slit. “You let Momma get hurt?” 

Slit smiles a little back. “She had a gun to my head.” 

Charlie rolls her eyes. “Sure did. You gonna show these boys where to go?” They’re kinda just standing there, nervous and quiet. 

“Yeah,” Slit says, getting serious again. “Do you want to help?” he asks the Dag respectfully. 

“Sure. Any of you hurt?” she asks, raising her voice. 

She doesn’t get much of a response from anyone besides Slit. “They’re hurt but not dangerously,” he says. “Do you know where they’re going to sleep?” 

“Oh. Well sure, the barn for now, since our new rooms aren’t quite finished.” She gestures at the other side of the shuttle, where their other house is being built. It’s just beams right now. There are a few boys working on it now, bracing the frame. “Come on,” she says, nudging shoulders and poking backs to get them moving. 

Charlie will get to know them tomorrow. Her arm hurts, and she wants to lie down and never move. “Everyone else alright?” she asks the Dag. 

“Just fine, Mom. Get some rest,” the girl assures her. “Get inside.” 

Max kinda wanders away, over to the construction site, so Charlie goes inside on her own. Splendid is in the kitchen, Adam in a highchair eating Cheerios. “Hey,” Charlie says. 

“Hi, how’d it go?” Splendid asks, turning around. Then she sees the hole in Charlie’s shoulder and gasps. “You got _shot_?” 

“The boys were being kept by some followers of Joe,” Charlie says. “They put up a fight. I’m fine, though. None of the kids got shot either. So we’re okay. What’s up here, how are you?” 

“Fine, doing fine. Cooking for the boys, dinner’s near.” Splendid gives Charlie a gentle hug. “You need anything?” 

“Rest,” Charlie admits. “Just some rest, and water.”

“Go sit down, I’ll bring you some.” 

Charlie sits out on the porch, on one of the couches. She pulls a footrest over too, and leans back. They did it. The kids are here, they’re safe, and they’re together. They’re all together. She closes her eyes and lets herself drop the constant vigilance, just for a second. 

Toast comes in quietly, sitting in the floor with her rifle. She takes it apart slowly, piece by piece, and cleans it with a soft rag. She doesn’t say a word, so Charlie doesn’t have to either. 

Splendid calls the boys to dinner after a while, Charlie hears it vaguely. She’s in a place between sleep and awareness, but she wakes up at that. Her kids will want to see her, and she wants to see them. 

Nux is the first one in. “Hey, Momma. It went okay?” 

“It went great.” Charlie says, leaning forward to hug him. 

“She got shot in the shoulder,” Toast says. 

Nux frowns and sits right next to her. “You’re okay?” he asks. 

“I’m fine, babe. Been shot before.” 

“Have you really?” Slit asks. He follows Nux in with his own plate of food and sits next to him. 

Charlie hems and haws a bit. “Well,” she says. “I’ve shot a lot of people.” 

A couple of them snort at her. “Not the same,” Toast says. “You told me that.” 

“Alright, shut up. Smartasses,” Charlie grumbles. She ruffles Nux’s hair a bit. “I’m fine,” she repeats. “No major organs or arteries hit. It went fine.” 

Nux picks up Charlie’s left arm, and it’s odd to see that happen without feeling it. He sticks his finger inside the bars of her forearm. “Nothing damaged?” he asks. 

“Nope.” 

“You want to take it off?” 

Charlie shakes her head. “I need a good arm. This is it. And it’s comfortable.” 

“Okay, good.” Nux sits cross-legged against her, and Slit sits against the arm of the couch facing them. “I thought the joints might get stiff,” he says. “But they aren’t, so that’s good.” 

“Of course they aren’t,” Slit says. “We sanded it all smooth.” He gives Nux a look that Charlie’s sure is meant to be annoyed. She’s gotten better at decoding how much caring is in that expression too. “Her arm was fine, anyways,” he says. “It was those foster parents that fucked everything up.” 

“Yeah,” Toast agrees. “They’re crazy as fuck.” 

Charlie restrains herself from telling the kids to watch their language. Those people _were_ crazy as fuck. “Nice shot, Toast,” she says when she remembers she hasn’t said it before. 

“Thanks.” 

“There was a crosswind and everything.” 

“Yeah, I’m getting better at those.” 

The Dag comes in next, clearly looking for Slit by the way her face lightens when she sees him. She sits across from him on the other couch. “Momma, a couple of the new boys have belt marks on their back,” she says. 

“Which ones?” Charlie asks. 

“Ned, Zac, Rolly. Couple of them. Others have marks, but nothing fresh.” The Dag takes a bite out of an apple and chews speculatively. “Capable could probably take care of them, if that’s good with you.” 

“Sure, that’s good,” Charlie says as Capable walks in. 

“What can I do?” she asks, sitting next to the Dag with one foot tucked under herself. 

The Dag answers. “Take care of the new warboys. Some of them are injured.” 

“Oh, sure.” Capable looks at Nux, making a funny face when they make eye-contact. She smiles a lot now. “Will you help me out?” 

“Sure.” Nux bobs his head in a nod. “I’d love to. It’s a lovely night.” 

It is. The sun is setting, streaking the sky orange and pink. The whole room is bathed in warm light. The Dag’s almost white hair picks up the colors of the sky in pastels, her eyes luminously blue as she looks at the boys. Next to her, Capable’s hair is the only thing brighter than the sky. Charlie wonders if it’s normal for parents to see their children as the most miraculous beings in creation. 

Mom leans in the doorway. “Hey, everything alright?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Charlie nods. “Flesh wound, muscle only. And that’s the last of the boys. So.”

“Good.” After a second, she comes and kisses Charlie on the forehead. Mom’s been quiet with her recently. “I love you,” she says. 

“You too, Mom.” Charlie hugs her with her good arm, and Mom takes the metal hand like she used to take the flesh one and squeeze it. 

Mom passes Zac on her way out of the room. He smiles at her nervously, and then looks at everyone in the room. “Hey,” he says. “Um. Can I come in?” 

He gets a chorus of positive answers from the kids that apparently confuses him, so Charlie answers too. “Of course, you can go anywhere in the house,” she says. “Come on, sit down.” He comes in and quickly takes a seat cross-legged on the floor, between the Dag and Toast. His plate of food is conservative. Charlie reminds herself to let him know he can take seconds if he wants. 

Zac’s the new face in this inner circle of sorts, so everyone’s quiet and sort of feeling the new situation out. Nux glances around at everyone several times, reading the situation and everyone’s emotions the way he’s so apt at doing. Slit gets a few extra looks from him, so Charlie looks at him too. Slit’s watching Zac like a hawk, breaking only to look up at the Dag briefly, to check on her. Capable’s attuned to her sister, not looking at her but still paying attention. Only Toast is still utterly focused on the gun in front of her, bless her. 

Then, abruptly, Capable looks up. “Mom, can I stay with you tonight?” 

“Sure,” Charlie says. “Something wrong?” 

“Nah.” 

“Okay.” Charlie’s actually hungry now, but she doesn’t want to get up. Right about when she’s considering asking one of the kids to get her food, Max comes in with two plates of food and puts one in her lap. “Thank you,” she says in surprise. 

“Sure.” Max sits down against the arm of the couch, next to her legs, and the dynamic changes again.

Zac can’t tell who Max is, it’s clear from how he keeps glancing at him. Nux, on the other hand, almost ignores Max completely. And that’s a gesture of trust from Nux, she knows that. He trusts Max not to hurt him, and that means just about everything. She can relax too.  

“Present for you,” Max says out of the blue. “Want to see it?” 

“Sure,” Charlie says. 

Without any fuss, he hands her a folder. She opens it to find birth certificates and social security cards, dozens, with unfamiliar names on them, but the age range makes it clear - these are her children’s. Somewhere in here is all of their information. She doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t work it out before Max apparently moves on. 

“You’re putting that together wrong,” Max says to Toast. 

“No I’m not.” 

“Sure you are. Look.” Max leans over and does something - Charlie can’t see what. “See. It goes in there,” he says. “Fits like that.” 

“Oh. Thanks.” Toast sounds surprised.

“Yep.” Max sits back. He’s so good with all of them. He’s gentle enough that they don’t have to fear him. He knows a little bit about everything, and a lot about fighting. She should ask what he did in the war. 

“The police were scared of the arm,” Slit says to Nux. “Made her take it off. They thought it was a weapon.” 

Nux looks to Charlie. “Really? I’m sorry. We can make it less scary.” 

“Nah, it’s fine. I like it. Don’t worry about it. And they should be scared. I could crush their hand with this thing.” As it is, she has to be careful not to crush the fork in her hand. She tucks away the folder between her and the arm of the couch.

Nux grins. “Yeah.” He snuggles in happily against her, smiling when she puts her arm around him for a second. “I like it too,” he agrees. “If you need a tune-up, just tell me. Or Slit, if you’re on a mission or something.” 

“No more missions, probably,” Charlie says. “We got everybody.” 

The Dag pouts. “I like the missions, Momma.” 

“I still have to go on some,” Toast says. “Training for Joe.” 

“I’ll go with you,” the Dag decides.

“Can I?” Slit asks gruffly, and the Dag nods. 

Charlie steps in then. “No, no. Toast, we don’t know what you’re going to do for training missions, but you’re not going to go out and shoot civilians. And no one’s going with you but me. Bigger teams are easier to catch.” 

“Take them to a range,” Max says. “A shooting range. Set some new records. Get out of the house, so to speak. Training mission.” 

“Maybe,” Charlie says, glaring a little at the back of his head. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Yes. Thanks, Max,” Toast says. 

He gives her a thumbs up. He has ranch dressing on his thumb. 

“Um…” Zac begins, but doesn’t continue even when most of them are looking at him. 

“You can talk,” Capable says quietly.

That seems to be what he was looking for. “What should we do?” he asks. “While we’re here.” 

“Oh. Well, Nux has a pretty good sized workshop in the garage,” Charlie says. “If you liked doing that. Max is leading some of the boys in building a second house, so you guys have somewhere to sleep, so you could do that.” 

“Mom’s teaching some of us to shoot,” Toast says. “The Dag, and Slit and me.” 

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “But only when I know I can trust you with a gun.” 

“Some of the warboys are building a bunch of treehouses in the woods,” Nux suggests. “You could do that too.” 

“Helping Splendid and me in the kitchen,” Capable says. “Chores around the house. Mom’s sending us to school soon too, everybody who’s the right age. Do you know how old you are?” 

Zac shakes his head. 

“Well, any of those things,” Charlie says. “Whatever sounds good. Okay?” 

Zac nods hesitantly. “Well, but what do you want me to do?” he asks. “Because you’re in charge, right?” 

Charlie doesn’t know what to say. “Uh.” She takes another bite instead.

“Yeah, she is,” Nux says. He kisses her on the cheek, and Charlie tenses a little. “This is our mother. Mom. But she won’t tell you what to do or anything. Unless it’s an emergency. She loves us. If you need anything, Mom can get it for you. Or Splendid. Splendid is kind of another mom. And Max.” 

Max turns and smiles at Nux. “I’m a mom too?” he says. 

“Well, you’re not a father,” Nux says patiently. “So.” 

Max shakes his head a little, but he doesn’t argue. Nux has a point, Max is nothing like the father they knew. Nux would know better than anybody. 

Slit clarifies further for Zac. “Mom’s like the general,” he says. “Me and Nux are the lieutenants. The sisters are colonels too, you have to listen to them.” 

“Max,” Nux reminds him, taking a bite of his mac and cheese. 

“Oh. Well.” Slit frowns thoughtfully, looking at Max. “When he’s here, he’s equal to Charlie.” 

“Harsh,” Max snorts. 

Charlie laughs a little bit. “But you don’t have to… like, there’s no chain of command like that. We aren’t strict. Capable will be telling all of you new boys what’s going on tomorrow, you don’t have to worry about it, I promise.” 

Zac nods a couple times, and he starts when the Dag reaches down to pat his shoulder. But when she attempts to muss up his short hair, he smiles. He’s still a little nervous, but he smiles and he says, “Um, where do I sleep?” 

“Tonight? Anywhere. We don’t have beds for you guys yet. Somebody will get you a bedroll, and then you can sleep wherever you want.” Charlie ruffles Nux’s hair, and he nuzzles back in against her. As always, he likes the contact and attention, and she’s learning to enjoy it too. Even when she’s a little too rough with her metal hand, he never seems to mind. 

Capable smiles at the two of them, and Charlie remembers that she’s sharing her bed with her tonight, and she asks again, “Everything’s really alright?” 

“Everything’s fine, Mom. I just want to talk.” She means it. She gives Charlie a smile, chocolate smeared on her lip. “And one of the new boys can have my bed.” 

“Me too,” Nux says. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You don’t have to,” Charlie says. 

“I want to. To take care of my brothers.”

Slit nods. “I will too.”

“Speaking of taking care, how about that first aid,” Capable says to the Dag.

“Oh right. Oi,” the Dag says. “Zac. You got fresh marks on your back, don’t you?” 

“I… yes,” he answers, fear overwhelmed by the apparent instinct to obey. 

“C’mon, stand up,” she prompts, standing herself. Charlie realizes with more than a bit of surprise that Zac is taller than her lovely tall daughter. The Dag seems to realize it too, smiling up at him. “Alright, big boy. Let’s round up the others. Want you to sleep well, and avoid any of those nasty infections, yeah?” 

“Alright.” 

“Yeah, there’s a good boy.” She pats his shoulder. “Cay, you coming?” 

“Coming now.” Capable shoves a last bite in her mouth and then stands too, giving the two taller kids a bit of a bemused look. The Dag takes her hand and leads her and Zac out of the room. 

“Do you think they need help?” Nux says after a second. 

“Probably not,” Charlie says, a little bemused. “They’re pretty handy.” She hears Max snort in agreement and amusement. 

Nux nods. “No, I know, I don’t mean like that. I mean do you think they’d like my help?” 

Slit answers first. “Relax,” he says. “They won’t hurt her.” He stretches out on the couch, putting his leg over Nux’s. “And if they do, I’ll shred them.” 

“Probably not,” Toast says mildly. “I feel like Mom wouldn’t like that.” 

“Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t like the new guys hurting any of the sisters, either, would she,” Slit says, snapping a little. “They need to know there are consequences.” 

“Sure,” Max says. “But those consequences aren’t shredding people anymore.” 

“Well, but I didn’t mean actually shredding them.” Slit’s cross. He puts his plate on the ground and leans back against the couch. “Just… punishing them.”

“Okay,” Charlie says. “What would that be? The punishment. What are you thinking.” 

Slit frowns, confused, but his face softens too. “I don’t know,” he says. “What’s… I don’t know what’s good to do. Usually he just… well, we can’t hit them, can we?” 

There’s something significant in the way he’s including himself in the chain of command. She hears another question implied in what he said, asking that she can’t hit him, can she? It’s been about three months, she’d hope he knows by now.

“Ask the only real parent in the room,” Charlie says, and nudges Max.

“Me?” He sounds surprised. 

“Yeah, you. Must remember something.” 

Max gives her a long look, perfectly aware that she’s prying in front of the kids but also not willing to call her out on it. “Well,” he says. “Just the normal things. But I don’t think those would work, do you?” 

“What do you mean?” Charlie asks curiously. 

Max turns ninety degrees so he can look at her. It’s a little comical to see him so short. “I mean that you can’t punish all kids the same way, can you. My kid knew his parents would never hurt his. So taking away dinner for a night or sending him to his room got the point across but it didn’t scare ‘m. Not like…” He nods at the boys. 

Charlie feels the shiver through Nux before she even turns to look at him. Slit looks awfully uncomfortable as well, scratching the back of his neck. “That’s not bad,” he claims. 

“There’s a difference between logically knowing that and feeling good about it,” Max says. “And a parent, you never want to make your child distinguish between the two. The father you had before never fed you, never let you out. So it’s different, see.”

Charlie gives him a long look. “Read a lot of books,” she says. “Didn’t you.” Max just shrugs. 

“Is that what people usually do?” Nux asks. “No dinner or sending people to rooms.” 

“Yep.” Charlie nods. “Or taking away things you liked. Or spanking. Which is just hitting really.” She looks back at Max. “You’re right, none of these are really an option.” 

“People hit their kids? Is every mother and father bad?” Slit demands.

“No.” Charlie leans forward to look around Nux. “It’s not at all the same.” 

“It’s not as different as you’d think,” Max says. “But yeah.” 

“So. We can’t do any of that,” Charlie says after a moment. “Not without hurting them way too much. So what do we do?” She sets her plate down on the side table, and then pulls her legs in to sit cross-legged. “They listen, maybe we don’t need to do anything.” 

“They won’t always listen,” Slit says. “You aren’t Joe, you won’t make them listen so they’ll test it. If they touch the sisters, I’ll kill them.” 

“If they hurt each other, I’ll kill them,” Charlie says. “And that’s the least of our worries - remember what Dag did to you when she thought you were trying to hurt Cor?” Slit snorts a little, nods. “So what can we do about it?” 

Slit volunteers an answer after a moment. “I think… I think we have to do what they expect. But like, gentler.” 

“You’re suggesting we beat them. Gently,” Charlie says dryly. 

“No, no. I’m suggesting we just... “ He clasps his hands together in his lap and presses his lips together tightly when he can’t think of what to say. 

“Tell you what,” Charlie says. “I’ll trust you for now. And when I see you do it, I’ll tell you if it’s good or not. How’s that.” 

Nux smiles down at his lap. Slit smiles too, and the movement seems unfamiliar to his face, to smile that big. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t hurt them.” 

“I know.” 

She gets the chance to see it later that night. The boys are deciding where to bed down, and while Charlie’s walking up to her room, folder under her arm, a couple of them nudge into her, making her wince. “Slow down, boys,” she says. 

Most of them do. One of them doesn’t. He falls into the wall, ripping the wallpaper, and Slit sees it. He flips the boy, and then Slit puts his hand around his throat while he’s on the ground. He doesn’t press down. The boy’s winded as it is. Slit just looks at him and says “Slow down.” 

He gets a terrified nod in response. When he pulls his hand back, the boy flinches. Slit just takes his hand to help him up. And that’s what he meant, about what they expect but gentler. Joe would beat them for something like that, and Slit didn’t. That’s what he meant. So she hugs him when he walks by her again. “That’ll work fine,” she says. 

“Okay. Thanks.” He smiles, smile growing when she squeezes him closer for a second. 

“You’re in charge,” she tells him. 

Slit nods, still smiling, and he ducks his head. 

Capable comes to Charlie’s room when the house is quiet. “Hey,” Capable says, climbing into bed next to her. 

“Hi. So you want to talk?” 

“Yeah. I do.” Capable pulls a pillow into her lap and hugs it tightly. “But I’m not sure how to say it, so. Give me a second?” 

“Of course, babe.” Charlie moves her mechanical fingers, touching each one to her thumb in sequence, over and over. She tells herself it’s like a holding pattern for her arm, a habit to make sure her fingers keep working. It’s probably more like a nervous tic. 

“I’m… I’ve loved Nux for a while now, I think,” Capable finally says. “But I don’t want to kiss him. Or do anything else with him.” 

“Okay.” 

“Well, is that… like, alright? Or allowed?”

“Has Nux asked for any of that?” Charlie says, a little confused. 

“No, not at all. Half the time he’s still amazed I touch him period, so. And even if I did ask him to wait, he would. He’s very… just respectful, and kind. I love him a lot.” 

Charlie smiles at her. “Good. Then don’t worry, I’d say. Don’t worry at all. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.” 

“I just… okay.” Capable touches Charlie’s prosthetic. “He’s so talented at building things. It’s almost scary, isn’t it.” 

“Definitely is.” 

Capable snorts, and then laughs out loud. “Yeah,” she admits. “Definitely.” 

“That’s all, though?” Charlie says after a second. “Nothing else?” 

“No, I’m fine.” Capable squeezes the pillow against her stomach, and the gesture reminds Charlie of the Dag after the abortion. She kept things in her lap, books, pillows, a sweatshirt, and squeezed it against her. She said her stomach felt empty. “He’s another piece of me, Momma. Like, we’ve just… we’ve got a connection.”

“It’s trust, babe. He trusts you.”

“And I trust him.” Capable nods. “I do.” 

“Then you don’t need to kiss him. Or want to. Only if you think you’d like it.” 

“Don’t know if I’ll ever like it,” she mumbles. “After Joe.” 

“Then you don’t have to.” 

Capable nods slowly, then tips closer to Charlie for a hug. “Thanks.” 

“Sure.” 

Nux is in the doorway before too long, and Charlie smiles when she sees him because honestly, she saw this coming. “Hi, honey,” she says. 

“Hey.” He looks at Capable, trying not to the whole time, and then back to her. “Um, are you guys… is everything going alright? In here. You’re alright?” 

“We’re good,” Charlie nods. “You?” 

“Fine, yeah. Good.” He’s very bashful about the whole thing, but he stays in the doorway, not quite willing to move. “You’re all.. you’re set, for tonight? You’re good?” 

“Come here,” Capable says with a smile in her voice. 

“No, it’s okay.” 

“Come here,” Capable repeats. “Stay with me. I mean it. If you want to.” 

Nux wants to. It’s the whole reason he’s here. He’s smiling so big when he joins them in bed, but he still maintains a cheerful distance. “Are you alright?” he asks again. “You needed to talk to Mom, is everything okay?” 

“It’s fine,” she says. “Just thinking.” And she puts her hand on Nux’s head then, smiling a bit. “Do you know how much I love you?” she asks him seriously. 

“No,” he admits easily. “How much?” 

She motions him closer, and Nux hugs her, kneeling over her lap. Capable hugs back, kissing the side of his head and looking at Charlie, for some reason. Then she closes her eyes. “I don’t know either. A lot, though.” 

“That’s amazing,” Nux says seriously. “I love you a lot too.” 

“Alright. Mom, do you care if he sleeps in bed with us?” Capable asks. 

“No, that’s fine.”

Nux gets off Capable’s lap after a bit and sits in the middle. He puts his arms around her then, head on her shoulder, and he murmurs things to her that make her smile. 

Whenever one or two of her kids come in, the rest all seem to know it and feel it. It’s not even remotely a surprise to her that the Dag comes in, leading Slit by the hand. “Momma?” the Dag asks, a single-word question. 

“Of course, yeah.” She’s got a foam mattress for her floor now, for times like this. The Dag and Slit roll it out on the side of the bed closest to her and sit against her desk. Charlie always watches them, because they aren’t as trusting as the other couple. They’re both a little feral. The Dag presses into his space until Slit accommodates her, but he’s always so tense that Charlie’s frankly worried he’ll snap one day. 

Tonight’s like all others. The Dag puts her hand on his knee, tapping out a little rhythm that Slit twitches at, every beat. She’s not watching him, but she’s paying absolute attention. Finally, Slit moves. He covers her hand with his a bit roughly, flattening it on his leg, and then he laces his fingers through hers. “Stop it,” he says. And Charlie thinks of how he flipped the warboy, how this is a gentler extension of that. He’s defining limits. That, for him, seems to be a gesture of trust. 

The Dag stares at him, her eyes narrowed. “Stop it?” she repeats. 

“Yes. It makes me uncomfortable. Not you, just the… touching stuff.” He’s gruff. He keeps looking down at his lap rather than her. She has a hard gaze to meet. 

“Okay,” she says after a moment. “All touching?” 

He shakes his head, lips in a tight line. And he squeezes her hand then, like he hopes that means something to her. And of course it does. Her daughters are all intuitive, and they know these boys better than anyone. 

The Dag does something curious then, which isn’t exactly new. She turns her head and presses her lips against his shoulder. Charlie watches Slit close his eyes too, and he holds very still. After the kiss, she moves up a bit and presses her forehead against the side of his head. “Alright,” she says. She’s still pushing. But she’s doing it within his terms, mostly. 

She stops tapping even after he lets her hand go. She keeps her hand on his leg and puts her head down on his shoulder, and then she just sits there. Slit doesn’t move. And slowly, he relaxes. 

Toast doesn’t show up tonight, which Charlie is surprised by but not worried about. She keeps an eye on the gentle kids in bed next to her, and the wild ones on the floor. She keeps tapping her fingers together, just thinking. A mission for the kids. Maybe school would fill that need. Being out and about, a team in a new environment. Private school, maybe. 

“Um, Charlie?” In a twist that shouldn’t be surprising at all, Zac’s in the doorway too. 

“Yeah? Everything alright?” 

“Everything’s fine.” 

“You have a bed and everything?” 

Zac hesitates. “Is there room in… in here?” 

“Oh sure,” Charlie says. “Yeah. A bit crowded until we get more rooms for you guys, sorry. Over here, come on.” She points at the other side of the bed. “You have a bedroll, everything else you need?”

“Yes, thank you.” He unrolls his sleeping bag and sits in the middle of it, looking up at her, across the bed at Slit and the Dag. 

Charlie goes back to paying peripheral attention to them. The Dag’s got her hand on Slit’s side now, under his shirt and over the deep, twisting scars there by the looks of things. She isn’t holding him still at all, but Slit keeps himself still, very still, not looking at her. Charlie almost wants to get involved, but she decides against it. And before she can even turn the light off, she falls asleep. Quickly, like turning out a light. 

She wakes with a start in the middle of the night. The light’s still on, all the kids are asleep. She has to pee. Quietly. she gets up and walks to the bathroom. The house is silent. 

When she comes back, the Dag is blinking awake. She sleeps as lightly as a cat. “Everything alright?” she asks. 

“Fine,” Charlie says. “Bathroom.” 

The Dag nods, and she puts her head back down again. She and Slit aren’t touching, not quite, but he’s blocking her from the room with himself. And that’s the best thing Charlie’s done, letting them learn to trust each other. 

She falls back asleep herself as well, because she’s letting herself learn to trust them too. 

 

 

Five squad cars of police and two towncars of FBI agents show up the next day. Mom spots them first. “Charlie, police are here,” she says, coming into the room with urgency that betrays real worry. “And agents. I’m opening the gate as soon as they decide who gets to come in first. You’ve probably got a minute.” 

“Fuck.” Charlie gets up and runs outside. She almost runs into Max, who’s coming inside.

“What is it?” he asks immediately, steadying her with a hand on her elbow. 

“Get the boys all out in the woods. And the girls, all of them.” It’s cold out. She ran outside without a coat. 

He nods, and turns to run back to the construction, where there are several dozen of the boys. Charlie heads to the barn, taking deep breaths to warm herself up. Nux is there, working the skeleton of an old car he picked up a while ago with a bunch of the boys. “Woods,” she says. “Now. Police here, I don’t know what they want.” 

The boys all run out the back. Capable sticks her head over the edge of the loft. “How many?” she asks. 

“Doesn’t matter. Come on, go.” 

“I’m not going,” Nux says with a little shake of his head. Capable comes down the ladder quickly, a book under her arm. 

“You can’t fight them,” Charlie says, noticing how he’s held onto a wrench. 

“I don’t want to,” he says, noticing what she’s seeing and putting down the wrench. “I want to be there with you. I’m not going anywhere.” 

She doesn’t have time to fight. “Please,” she says. 

“I’m staying,” he says stubbornly. 

“I’ll go,” Capable says. “I’ll make sure the boys are safe and hidden.” 

“Fine.” Charlie turns to Nux. “Don’t speak, and follow my lead.” 

The kids nod then, and she and Nux leave out front of the barn while Capable runs out the back. Max is approaching from the construction site with Slit and the Dag in tow. “Wouldn’t leave,” he says. 

“This one either,” Charlie nods at Nux. She sees Nux and Slit exchange a look of mutual pride and respect. “Follow my lead,” she says. “And Max, get out of here. You’re wanted.” 

He nods and jogs into the house. The door closes behind him only seconds before vehicles swarm the driveway. Charlie’s heart is in her mouth, but Slit says, “We’ll be fine,” and she believes him. They’ll be fine. 

They’re seated very firmly in the living room. Charlie and the kids all squeeze onto the couch together, her in the middle. She doesn’t think she’s alone in just wanting the physical contact at the moment. The agents get priority over police so they get the other couch, sitting rather awkwardly three across and one in the chair. She doesn’t know any of them, but she sees at least three concealed firearms. The police stand around most of the perimeter of the room, a stern watchful presence. And Charlie is scared. 

“Agent Green, we have a few questions for you,” the lead agent says. “I’m Agent Warner, this is Special Agent Todd. Now, local law enforcement told us you have an unusual prosthetic. Can we see it?” 

“You’re looking at it.” Charlie raises her left arm, waves her hand. 

“Can you take it off and hand it over?” the agent clarifies. 

“Sure,” Charlie says. She unbuckles the straps quickly now, having done it a hundred times. She doesn’t really like taking it off, especially with her other shoulder still so achy, but she does so and she passes the arm to them. 

The moments where they examine it are deafeningly silent. They brought an apparent expert, who examines the arm in great detail, especially the mechanical parts. “This arm is fully functional?” the expert asks. 

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Works just like my normal hand did.” 

“Agent Green, the reports state that you lost your arm just over two months ago, in a rogue mission where you kidnapped members of a cult,” Agent Warner says. 

“That’s correct,” Charlie says. “Yes.” She can feel Slit vibrating against her, Nux on the other side trembling as well. 

“Wait,” the expert says. “Excuse me. But do you mean to tell me this prosthetic was constructed in two months?” 

“More like one month,” Charlie says, looking at Nux. 

Nux shrugs, a twitch of his shoulders. “Thirty-six days,” he mumbles. 

“You built this arm in thirty six days,” the agent repeats, looking at Nux in astonishment. 

“Well, we had to wait for the parts to ship,” Nux says, apparently taking the surprise as a statement of displeasure. “It would’ve been shorter if I had all the parts. But they took almost two weeks to ship.” 

“So…” The expert, a skinny tall man, rubs his eyes like he needs to clear them. “I’m Doctor Reid, a special consultant. But you built this in that time frame?” 

“Yeah,” Nux hesitates. “Why?” 

“Because frankly, that’s incredible. People spend years constructing prosthetics.” The doctor hands the arm back and asks Charlie, “Put it back on?” She does, and he comes over to watch her buckle it and then move all the fingers. Still works. He asks her to move in a few specific ways then, watching her hand and the watch. “Negligible delay,” he concludes. “Accuracy of movement. Comfort. How old are you?” 

“I don’t know,” Nux says. 

Charlie remembers the file on her bedside table all at once. “We just got ahold of their information,” she says. “Still sorting out fact from fiction Joe told them.” And although his is new information for all of her children, none of them so much as blink. 

Doctor Reid sits back down and Agent Warner takes over again. “We also hear one of these children is an impressive shot,” she says. “A man, Mister Owen Johnson, claims one of your dependants shot him at a distance.” 

“Well, first of all that’s a bold claim,” Charlie says. “He can’t prove anything. But if the shot was taken, it was at about four hundred yards with a decent crosswind.” 

“Really? How did a teenager make that?” 

“Allegedly,” Charlie says. “Allegedly made that shot. And I don’t know.”

“Do you keep weapon in places where the children can reach them?” Agent Warner asks, with an air of having caught them. 

“No,” Charlie says. 

“Can you show us where you keep them?” 

“I’m afraid you’ll need a warrant for that.” 

Frustrated, Agent Warner glances at her. “Your mother and you have a combined total of more than twenty firearms registered to you. And you’re claiming none of them are somewhere one of these kids can get to them?” Charlie doesn’t answer. “You have six Berettas, three Glocks. FR-F1 rifles specially ordered from France. Shotguns. An SKS Russian variation rifle.” She's reading the list off her notepad.

“Yes.” 

“Where do you keep those rifles?” 

“As I said, you'll need a warrant.” Charlie doesn’t think it’d be a great idea to tell Agent Warner one of the Berettas is in the couch cushion she’s sitting on. Or that Toast has claimed the SKS as her own. She sleeps with it. Actually, she doesn’t know where Toast is, at the moment. Charlie hopes she’s smart enough to stay hidden.

“Well, would you agree that the presence of so many weapons makes this a dangerous environment?” 

“No," Charlie says. “I think they came from a dangerous environment, and that the presence of so many weapons is something the U.S. Government is directly responsible for." That makes them uneasy. “My mother gave 40 years of her life to the U.S. military. I've already given ten. If you’re going to imply that we'd be irresponsible with firearms, then that's not only offensive, it's ignorant. Next line of questioning.” 

After several long moments, Agent Warner moves on. “How are you providing for the emotional needs of the rescued victims?” 

“I’ve offered them the chance to see a therapist. I listen when they need to talk. At the moment, none are seeing any professional help and I haven’t pressed the matter.” 

“So you have more than fifty traumatized and emotional stunted teenagers in a house that’s practically an arsenal?" Agent Warner says. 

“I don’t see your point," Charlie says sharply. Slit flinches. 

“Well, wouldn’t you say it’s kind of a miracle they've only shot one person?” 

The Dag reacts first. “Motherfucker,” she spits with fiery fury. “If it wasn't for Charlie, we'd be in a shit group home like the one the boys were in. The ones you put them in. And were going to leave them in.” 

“Federal group homes are carefully regulated," Agent Warner begins. 

“Sure,” Charlie cuts her off. “But they aren’t designed to handle trauma victims who are rediscovering their sense of self and individual agency.” 

Slit speaks up quietly. “This is better than that was,” he says. “Charlie actually cares. We all want to stay.” 

“And you are?” 

The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Slit.” 

Agent Warner writes that down. “And your age?” 

“Don't know.” 

“None of the boys know, I told you that.” Charlie puts her hand on the boy’s back protectively, possessively. 

“And the girls? Their ages?" 

“Why?” 

"Because it might be in their best interest to remove them from this situation.” 

“Absolutely not,” Mom says loudly. “We’re their legal guardians. Most of them are over age anyways.” 

“Sure,” Agent Warner says. “But the minors or suspected minors who have yet to formally be in your care…" She doesn't have to finish that for the threat to be clear. 

Mom comes forward, leans over the couch back. “Are you threatening us?” 

“Not at all. But with a shooter in the pack, the danger is impossible to ignore." 

So that's it. They want Toast. And they're just about the only people who could be real threats. Charlie feels sick to her stomach. 

Mom speaks for her again. "So the agency got cold feet, and the cops are embarrassed we caught a child abuser who’s conspiring with a wanted felon, and we’re the ones you’re trying to  set up for the fall? Get off my property." 

“We’ll be back,” Agent Warner says. 

“I'm sure you will be," Mom snaps. “See you then.” 

Dr. Reid lags behind the other agents to talk to Nux. “When did you start building things?" 

"Since I could walk,” Nux says shyly. “The Father wanted us all to be useful.”

“Had you made prosthetics before this one?" Reid asks. 

"Yeah, a couple. Um, a lower leg, for a warboy. I was working on a hand when I was younger, didn't finish it. A lot of braces too, for knees and wrists.” Nux scratches his arm. “A lot of car engines, so." 

“Car engines," the doctor repeats. 

“Yeah,” Nux says. "Basically the same. Similar.” 

The Dag nudges Charlie’s arm as she stands. “Momma, there’s yelling.” She and Slit move just a bit faster so they're out the door before her. An officer is pulling a boy towards a police cruiser. Sam, Charlie realizes, right as Slit runs for him. 

They meet with nearly magnetic force. Slit pulls Sam into his arms, and Sam clings to him so tightly that three officers can’t separate them. 

“Stop, what are you doing?” Charlie says sharply. She goes to help Slit, using her metal arm to pry her boys free. 

“This child is obviously underage and in an unsafe environment,” Agent Warner says. “We’re remanding him into federal custody.” 

“Like hell you are,” Mom says. 

Charlie can’t keep all the officers away, though, and the Dag looks like she's about three seconds away from punching a cop. Something's got to give. 

“What do you want?” she asks loudly, shortly. 

“Who shot Owen Johnson?” the agent says. 

Charlie’s stomach sinks. “This is extortion.” 

“I did it,” Slit says. 

“No!” the Dag shouts before anyone else reacts, and she runs to him, twisting around the hands trying to grab her. Slit puts down Sam but the Dag doesn’t jump into his arms or hug him. She glares at him, and she puts her hand on Sam’s head. “Bloody idiot,” she says. 

Agent Warner comes up, daring Charlie to stop her, and says, “You’ll need to come with us.” 

“Yeah,” Slit says. “Just a second.” He hugs Charlie, squeezing her tight. “Owen knows it wasn’t me,” he whispers. “They’ll be back to nothing.” 

She hadn’t even thought of that. Pleased, she kisses his hair. “Good boy.” 

Slit gives Nux a look full of meaning she can’t decipher. Then he turns to go with Agent Warner. The Dag stops him, grabbing him by the arm, and before he's even turned back she pulls him towards her. It starts off as a rough hug, but then she moves one hand up to cradle the back of his head, and he holds her around the waist and shoulders. It’s the most intimate thing Charlie's seen from them. And after, the Dag takes Sam by the hand and leads him inside without looking back. 

They handcuff him before putting him in the back of the car, which is unnecessary. “I hope this is worth losing your job over,” Mom says. "I really hope so.” 

“Don’t say anything,” Charlie remembers to tell him. 

Slit nods. “Don't worry, Mom," eh says with a crooked smile. 

Charlie watches them drive away. Max comes out on the roof to watch as well, and Toast joins him. “I’m sorry,” she calls down, voice wavering. 

“Don't be," Charlie says. “It was a great shot. He'll be back in 48 hours.” 

“Yeah, or I’m calling the Director of the FBI,” Mom says, deceptively mild. 

Charlie crosses her arms. “What can we do about this?" she asks. “I never want this to happen again.” 

“Custody,” Mom says. “Formal adoptions. And we need to get those birth certificates figured out tonight. Now.” 

“Okay.” Charlie looks to Nux. “Will you tell the boys it’s safe?” 

“Sure.” He doesn’t move.

“What is it?” Charlie asks. 

“You’re sure he’ll come back?" 

“Absolutely. No doubt.” 

 

 

The night after that, Slit is brought back. He takes the excited welcomes with a kind of gruff patience, but as soon as he can, he seeks out solitude, and Charlie. 

She’s on the porch, which she’s temporarily claimed as a study of sorts. All the birth certificates are laid out and organized by gender and date. Now she’s combining through any public records she can get to find the parents and hopefully make some connections. 

Slit knocks on the door frame. “Yeah?” she says, looking up. 

“Do you mind if I sit in here?” 

“No,” she shakes her head. “Of course not.” 

He sits cross-legged next to her on the floor, watches her for several minutes. Charlie jots down a few more promising notes and phone numbers. She’ll call tomorrow morning. It'd make her life a lot easier to have access to FBI databases, to lists of Joe's known associates. Sadly no chance of that. 

“Do you…” Slit starts, then stops. Charlie pauses writing - she picks back up again when he doesn't continue. She doesn't want to spook him. Finally, he asks, “Am I good enough? Or just… Good?” 

“Yeah,” she says. “Definitely.” 

“I’m trying.” She almost can't hear him. 

“You’re succeeding.” Charlie looks over at him. His lips are trembling. She thinks he might cry. So she holds her arm out to him. After just a moment, Slit move in to let her hug him. He puts his head down on her shoulder and doesn’t make a sound. 

“You’ve got backup now,” she tells him. "You've got me.” 

“I know.” He clears his throat and repeats it. “I know." 

“Good." She pats his shoulder. “Y’know, I’d like to adopt you. If you'll let me. I’ve been meaning to ask.” 

“Sure,” he says immediately. “Yes.” 

She has a lot she'd like to say to him, a whole childhood of words for him that he never heard. Comfort and love and teasing, gentle reprimands and lessons, and holding him tighter before he got this big. She pictures the little boy he must've been, eyes wide and cheeks smooth, and she almost wants to cry herself. 

“Wonderful,” she says, voice and throat tight. “I’ll start the paperwork.” 

The Dag comes in a bit later. “Can I join you?” she asks Slit specifically, waiting for his nod to sit next to him. She copies his pose, sitting just close enough for their knees to touch. “That was brave,” she says. 

“I knew they couldn't keep me,” Slit shrugs. 

“Still brave." She reaches out then, and puts her hand on his leg. She looks a bit like a cat, testing, just testing. This time, when Slit takes her hand, it’s not to stop her. “Would appreciate a bit of warning next time,” she adds. 

“Okay.” 

The pair of them sleep on Charlie's bedroom floor that night, holding each other gently. Charlie catches the Dag touching the scars on his cheek while Slit watches her face intently. 

She only gets one more kid tonight. Zac, with shyness and surprise that she wants him when she says he can share the bed. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, come on.” She's feeling like a third wheel to her own kids, honestly. And she's been wanting to get to know some of these new kids better. “Everything alright?” she asks him. 

“Um, yes.” He sits on the foot of the bed, looking a bit gangly and awkward but very friendly. “Yeah, I’m alright. How are you?” 

She snorts a little. "I'm fine.” She almost tells him to come up and sit next to her, but then she sees him shifting uncomfortably when she moves and she thinks better of it. "Is your shoulder okay?" he asks. 

"No worse than usual. I don’t need anything.” 

“Okay.” 

She takes a guess at what he's thinking and how to answers. "You don’t have anything to earn or prove to me," she says. "you can just hang out.” 

Zac gives her a single nod, most of a smile. He falls asleep at the foot of the bed, stays there much of the next morning, and it’s nice. 

Max comes in that morning, sitting next to her against the headboard. Charlie can't remember if she’s ever seen him this early in the day. “Hey,” he says casually. 

“Hey?” Charlie frowns, trying not to smile. 

"What if I stick around a little longer?” he says. 

That’s only exactly what she’s wanted for months. “Okay,” she says. “You want a room? Roof will only be warm enough for so long?” 

“Nah." Charlie has a sneaking suspicion he’ll end up in here more often than not, not quite imposing until he's actually welcome. She can’t bring herself to mind. 

They both know it's only a matter of time until the kids who all call her Mom to deem him Dad, once he's a permanent presence around here. She’s still almost completely dark on the details, but his last family died. So this is big. But he's just sitting on her bed calmly, hands folded in his lap. 

“Okay,” she says. 

“Okay,” Max echoes. 

And that's that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Okay wow thank you for all the kudos and comments! None of my other fandoms have been so welcoming and encouraging. <3


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